Hey all...
Just had a little time to catch up here and this discussion gave me a little inspiration to write.
First off, Dr. Vargas is entitled to his opinion and he's giving it in print. That's not a bad thing. It's amazing to me how many turfgrass professionals have lots to say, but don't think they want to put it in writing. Someone said...it's easy to get published, and that made me laugh. It took me years to get any kind of real ink out and even more years to erase all the hostility that came from those who didn't agree with whatever I wrote...be it Opinion or Technical. And if you are talking about peer review type thing...well obviously that's not what Dr. Joe was writing this piece for. I think he knows when he's being controversial and what that means to his career today. It's a brave new world when you can be googled...that's for sure. But I digress...
The whole thing about Fine Fescue in the US makes me giggle. It's as if it is something new and something that need study and something that needs a whole lot of discussion. Fescue meetings, Fescue Summits, Fescue Field days...you name it...it seems to be happening.
All I can offer is some real world examples of getting it right and getting it wrong and when I come to this discussion, to me it has so very little to do with the grasses. And in all of my time consulting, I have been amazed at how many Sweater Folders or Sandwich Makers who have tried to tire iron me to say..."the grass is wrong...that's the problem", when nothing could be further from the truth.
Fine fescue needs a lot of things that American Supers (sorry but, as a generalization...it's true) just can't or won't do. It needs a poverty system. It needs very little water. It demands a very different kind of fertility program. If it gets the usual, it gives very awkward symptoms and yields very poor playing conditions. Many many people who have great intentions have had this grass bring them to their knees and for all kinds of reasons. Be it a whole golf course or just a little bit of "native" getting it wrong with Fescue can be a very memorable experience.
In a few situations, where I knew we had the soil and the water (or lack of), the weather and all the rest of the things that would make Fescue work, evaluating the expectations of the owner and the target market I knew that we just couldn't do Fescue. In the wrong hands, the perfect grass or grassing scheme means a failure. I'm not always talking about the super here, often the lack of understanding by owners and others involved mean that they won't have the backbone to "sell" brown grass. Sand Hollow was one of these. We had perfect soils, the right weather (more on that later) and a tone of other stuff in our favor for fescue, but in looking at the target market, the experience of the owners, the comments the owners made about other courses they have played, the comments from the director of golf during pre-construction and a ton of other factors, we planted bluegrass and it is exactly what they need and want. Would I liked to have taken advantage of all that sand and all the possibilities of firm dry fast fescue, you bet. I wanted to. But it wasn't me as the owner and me as the sales guy and me as the sweater folder and me as the super. And for that...we made the right choice. We've all seen them or heard of failures of fescue attempts and again, I'm amazed at how the grasses get the blame. This isn't just the case for Fescue.....all of us can think of stories where the conditions were not right and yet, the grass gets the blame because it was something new or different.
In a few situations, I have stood tall for fine fescue (I know...too much time on the road makes me a turfhead hambone), when everyone was telling me that the numbers just didn't add up. Ballyneal was one of these. All my trusted turfgrass peers were telling me that I was making a huge mistake. "Dave, there is no ocean in northeastern Colorado", said one of the seed types. And I heard a lot here from the GCA Agronomy experts. And on and on. But I knew the soils, knew the water, knew the weather. What I also knew, was the honesty in the way that Rupert and Jim O'Neal listened to me as I explained the uphill battle of selling brown grass. And in turn, I saw them support Dave Hensley, Ballyneal's amazing super in his own learning curve. I heard things like "we are Down with Brown" (down..meaning "cool with" for you non-phat non hipsters). And low and behold...last I heard, a lot of people like it and well...there isn't any ocean.
At Aetna Springs, I grassed with a fescue/colonial blend and despite the owner's cost cutting, we went forward with it only to be challenged a lot and had I had known what some of the late arrivals to the party were thinking, we might not have done that. But certainly the weather is hot there and again...no nearby ocean. However, the call was for firm, dry and fast and the greens tees and fairways to be the same grasses and so, that's what we did and Dick Rudolph is doing a very good job there and is figuring it out, despite the other hassles with things he can't control.
The question always come up, is it more sustainable? First off, I think ALL turf can be more sustainable. But inside of that, you are asking a monoculture to not have it's own potato famine episode. If you haven't read it...Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire is a must read. Sustainable and Monoculture don't go hand in hand. Nearly all turfgrass managers in the next few years are going to have to look at their own sustainability and their own sustainable practices and so..in some cases, addition of other grasses is going to have to be part of of the thinking. One of the things about a good fine fescue seeding is that we can spec an exact percentage of seeds by weight to get a desired seed count of several different varieties. When I start to talk about Chewings versus Strong Creeping Red vs. Slender Creeping Red vs. Sheeps, a ton of people have no idea what those grasses look like as monostands and have equal cluelessness about what they would do in a polystand. For sure, a properly done Fescue/Bent/Blue blend can overcome the monostand thing and right there...we beat the rule that nature sets forth nearly every time as it comes to monoculture. Very very important. And it very much takes away from the ablilty of the turfgrass manager to have a very uniform playing surface. By nature, a polystand is going to segregate, it is going to produce a modeled eye finish, it is going to challenge weeds in one way on a north slope and in a whole different way on a south slope. Those things can't be helped and if "Just like Augusta" is the mantra...well...then you have the answer.
My hat is really off to the guys in the States that are giving a huge passionate run at this. Guys like Nice (and company at Bandon) and Hensley (Ballyneal) and Lucas (Kingsley) and Bastis (California Club), well....I think they will all tell you that this isn't easy. A few of them told me more than once that I was totally nuts and that everyone they talked to said it wouldn't work and I had to give them CPR and ask them to trust in the passion. It's passion driven and for sure, a ton of their target market won't really ever care about sustainability. They should, we all know that...but they just don't. For sure, the american golfer just isn't showing any of us in the grass business that they want less...they indeed always ask for more...and sometimes in the same sentence, are telling us that we need to spend less. Fine Fescue can be a very good answer to the need for "poverty" but the acceptance in main stream while we dump ryegrass all over an overseeding gig and burn in stripes isn't going to be very much of a sure thing.
Just my 2 cents in my once a quarter posting here.
