Bob,
I read that letter. It was a letter partly of ignorance and perhaps of just-plain meanness, which is to say either the writer didn't bother to ask in the pro shop, or decided to leave out what he would have been told.
This past summer Scott Ramsay embarked on an experimental approach to ridding the course of poa annua.
Here is Scott's letter to the membership, dated 6 August:
"I once heard an inspiring speech based on a chapter of the conquest of Mexico by Cortes. The romantic version of this story has Cortes sailing to Mexico and when they arrived he gathered his landing party on the shoreline as he had their ships scuttled. They were committed.
There was no going back, no escape route and no plan B. The only thing that mattered was ahead of them, so commit to the success of the mission. I will let the historians separate fact and fiction.
I am committed to the next step in improving the Yale Golf
Course. Last year I began introducing many techniques that would lower our populations of annual bluegrass (AB) which has invaded and colonized the course and to increase the indigenous bentgrass (BG) populations. The goal is to improve the consistency of the golf course while reducing the need for pesticides and water.
The first step was to provide the proper conditions for success for the Yale Golf Course. That meant sunlight, air movement and healthy soil conditions. Anything less would be a waste of seed. Secondly alter the sequence of agronomic programs so that it favors the preferred grasses. We are now in the third phase where I have implemented a "controlled burn" that has caused thin stressed turf, which is the perfect seedbed for the newer varieties. I simply held back on water, fertilizer and pesticides to induce this condition. It has been a long trek this summer and they are simply hungry, thirsty and without medicine. The weak will not survive.
"This is the low point.
"Now is the time to seed and rebuild. So as counter intuitive as it
may sound, the uglier I can make the greens the quicker and more successful this plan will be. It is critical to time the interseeding during the high soil temperatures in August and before the cooler nights of September. AB seed will not germinate in the summer months but bentgrass will. Just like the technology revolution in golf equipment there are many newer grasses that can perform easily under modern conditions and expectations.
This year a new factor has made it even more critical to succeed and succeed now. We are limited by the Connecticut DEP on how much water we can use and we have been in violation since late in June 2007. We have been exceeding our daily permitted totals each day during this drought. Currently I can only use enough water to keep the BG alive or else I will be paying the King more than his fifth, revocation of all water use. The shorter rooted AB is stressed and struggling.
Right now it is exacerbating the current program but ultimately it
will prove this conversion is necessary. I have no choice but to use this water challenge as an opportunity to hasten the turf conversion.
The water diversion regulations are a new challenge for all of
Connecticut's golf courses and the university has pledged to resolve this new challenge. I will keep you updated.
In August we will be repeatedly seeding the greens and nursing along the new seedlings. They already have been seeded twice in the first week. The process is very easy and is barely distinguishable to sight and ball roll. I would like to be around for a while and to create a more sensible and sustainable situation for all of us. This has worked at my previous golf courses. A few more weeks and a few more pounds of seed is a solid long term investment into improving the Yale Golf Course so we can all enjoy it for years to come.
PS This is a drastic program that many of my colleagues wouldn't attempt, but many in my business will be watching. You can always tell who the pioneers are; they are the ones with the arrows in their backs. Here are some of the links to my research."
<http://www.turfgrasstrends.com/turfgrasstrends/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=383551&ref=25&searchString=interseeding>
http://www.turfgrasstrends.com/turfgrasstrends/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=383551&ref=25&searchString=interseedinghttp://www.turfgrasstrends.com/turfgrasstrends/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=442840Hope this helps,
Mark