In the Beginning, From This to That

In the beginning, which starts on or around February for our fairway/tee Dormant Zoysia grass, we start the process of cultural practices to bring our fairways from

                                                                                This

To That

The last few days with unseasonably warm temperatures and drier conditions, we began spraying our fairways with our pre-emergent product Ronstar which is the best product on the market for our 27 acres of fairways. This has to be done during dormancy or when the warm season turf is at rest so the herbicides have little to no negative effects on the turf. There are less expensive products than Ronstar on the market but these products disrupt root growth and or could further damage areas that have been weakened by shade, traffic and excessive moisture issues. Our fairways are the largest area of tightly mowed turf on the property and are a significant feature of our course. This is why we are using this products as well as making a concentrated effort in reducing the impact of bermuda contamination we have in the fairways. Our Bermuda Eradication Program as you know involves spraying other selective herbicides that negatively effect the bermuda throughout the growing season and replacing larger patches with new Zoysia sod. 

We also use a non-selective herbicide Prosecutor(Round Up Generic) in the mix in winter which will kill the poa annua which has germinated in the fairways since last fall. If we did not kill these spots of poa on the fairways, they could become pretty large before we begin mowing and disrupt your lie on the fairway and will also contribute many more seeds to the weed bank in the fairways that we continually fight. 

It will take about 2-3 weeks for the chemical during cooler temperatures to begin to show the effect of the Prosecutor. The pre-emergent is for crabgrass/goose grass weed control to prevent them from establishing in our fairways. The weeds actually germinate and then when the root of the weed comes in contact with the chemical it kills it. We will also be spraying our tees and range tees as well.   

Preparing Sprayer for Dormant Zoysia Pre-emergent/Poa Control

Since I had to come in this morning to open the course, I decided to check spray rig before the next round of below zero temperatures settles in.  Within the next couple of weeks, we will be making our yearly Dormant Zoysia Pre-emergent/Poa control application to our fairways, tees and green surrounds that are covered in zoysia/bermuda.

This application includes a pre-emergent product Ronstar Flowable and non-selective herbicide Glysophate product for post-emergent on our fairways to control crabgrass/goosegrass/poa/other weeds and will kill already germinated poa annua that has popped up in the warm season grass since last fall.  We still need to do some off season work on the sprayer but the main thrust for checking it out was to insure that it is pumping properly before this very important winter spray application.  We try to spray on a sunny day when temperatures are above freezing and the ground can handle the sprayer driving on it.

Poa annua will become active in above freezing temperatures over a few days and will pull the material into its system and the herbicide will kill it over a few weeks.   It is only safe to spray this non-selective material during dormant periods in the dead of winter or it could hurt the warm season grass or delay it breaking dormancy.  The pre-emergent is sprayed onto the turf surface and prevents the shoots of the undesirable weeds from growing which kills the plant.  It is different chemistry than  other pre-emergents that inhibits roots from growing, including your turf grass roots.  If you ever hear someone saying that a pre-emergent is root pruning, that does not occur with the product we use.  It is not as price competitive as other products but when we are spraying over 30 acres like we do our tight zoysia areas, why would we not want the best product for the health of this large area of turf!  

The Glysophate spray will prevent little clumps of poa annua from interfering with play during the early part of the golf season.  It will also help to reduce the seed population of the poa annua which is a prolific seeding plant and will reduce competition in some of the less than ideal growing spots that we have on the course for the warm season grass.  Mainly shaded and or high compaction or traffic areas.  As the warm season grass is weakened, the poa annua or other weeds have a tendency to move in and attempt to reduce the warm season grasses ability to grow properly through competition for sun and water.

Still a few weeks away but the season will be upon us before we know it!

Sprayer mishap

Sometimes there is human error in our jobs and sometimes there are mechanical errors.  The situation I am describing below was mechanical.

I was spraying the zoysia with RoundUp and Pre-emergent in February, the middle spray boom stuck on after I had left 16 tee area and drove around 15 green surround and in the area of 13 tee.  I noticed it was stuck on when I made a pass along 13 tee and saw the turf area that was not to be sprayed had moisture on it and was blue in color from the dye we use.  The boom switch was off but the sprayer was stuck on so I had to shut the pump off to get the spray to stop.  You will see from the pictures below some of the damage that occurred from this spray.  Most of the damaged turf that will dye is poa annua because it is susceptible to kill from lower rates of spray than the other cool season turf that is mixed in our rough areas which includes bluegrass, rye and fescue.  The last three turf species turn off color but will usually come out of the damage.  We use the lower end of the scale to kill the poa annua in our fairways.  Once we get some warmer days over the next few weeks, the area should heal without much issue.

I was going to mention this issue in a post at the time it happened but I thought I would wait until the actual damage showed up so if  you came out to play you would know what you were seeing.  One of the things we make sure to do is to stay completely off of our bentgrass approaches and of course greens when we are moving around the course with this tank mix so as to prevent a major catastrophe from occurring.  Next to collars, we will do light dobbing applications or brushing of material on plants that we want to remove.

This view is from behind 15 green looking toward 16 tee area.  This area in the deep shade and might have to be replaced  because the amount of shade helps to create a high population of poa annua.   If it does not come out of it in a couple of weeks, we will strip it up and replace it with fescue.

You can see the line off the edge of the tee.  I turned around at the path and came around the back of the green surround.  As you can see, there is a mixture of bermuda and cool season grasses in the mix.  The more orangish spots are poa annua which will probably not come back.  The remaining turf should improve over the next couple of weeks and you will not know anything happened. 

Dye around Greens

Anyone who came out and played over the last couple of days has seen some marker dye being used around our greens, fairways and tees.   I was completing the preemergent/roundup application in our warm season turf areas which controls in season goosegrass and crabgrass germination and will kill the poa annua that pops up in places.  The staff used a 4x8 sheet of wood to drag around the edge of the collars to protect our green/collar turf from any over spray as we drove around the collars.  We might have some small hand applications to spot treat over the next few days due to bunkers being too close to the green surface or the sprayer moved a little further out then planned.  We will be applying preemergent and weed killer to our cool season first cut rough toward the end of March/early April.

Green #16 complex and the marker dye which indicates to the operator where the plant protectant materials have been applied.  

Discolored turf next to some greens

Those of you that have been out to play the course in the last 7-10 days have probably noticed the off color look of our greens.  I have explained our regulator program in a previous post and how we are trying to encourage our bentgrass and discourage the growth of the poa annua.  As I was checking some greens the other day, I noticed a distinct line between the surround area that received some of the same spray treatment as the greens and the area outside the treatment area.  I took a picture to illustrate how the spray affects the turf both inside and outside the spray zone.       

One of the benefits of having cool season turfgrass around our greens is the ability to spray products which are antagonistic to the poa annua and can injure or kill it.  With millions/billions of seeds being produced on our property, poa is always trying to invade into an area where it does not currently exist, namely the newly sodded fescue areas.  As we spray our greens which are mostly round in shape, we cannot shut off our 3 spray booms exactly as we cross the line between the green and surround.  The spray coming out onto the surrounds provides not only added benefits in reducing poa but also can protect the turf from disease and other pests.  The surround areas do receive control products for disease and insects during the season but not as frequently as the greens because the turf is at least 20 times longer which makes for a healthier, less stressed plant.  We sprayed a fertilizer/micronutrient package to the greens today which should have a positive effect on the color of our greens in the next few days. 

In the picture below, my camera case in on the spray line between the two distinct areas next to the green.  To the left of the case is the area that is coming out of winter naturally and did not receive any spray treatment.  To the right of the case and adjacent to the green is the area that received treatment and shows some discoloration.     

 Left side of 12 green/surround looking from front to back.

Non-selective/Preemergent application on Zoysia

The soil surface of our zoysia fairways was frozen this morning when Assistant Mike started our dormant application of the non-selective herbicide Roundup and premergent herbicide Stonewall combination spray.  Since we are using a non-selective material Roundup, we have to spray it when the turf is dormant and not actively growing.  The preemergent application in thrown in with the Roundup to reduce the number of applications we have to make during a season.  The preemergent will lay on the surface of the turf until rain or snow will release it to the soil.  The non-selective product is targeting poa annua which germinates in the fall and begins to grow rapidly as the days warm in March.  I chose to apply this product at a lower rate but it can be effective on broadleaf weeds such as knotweed as well.

We attempt to make this application anytime in February on a sunny day when the turf is firm enough for the sprayer to drive on without damaging the fairways and when the temperature is near or above freezing. 
Poa annua can become actively growing very quickly with sunny days and temperatures above freezing.  As it becomes active and starts to grow, the Roundup will do its work and kill the plant.  The preemergent will create a barrier for crabgrass and goosegrass.  Most home owners will apply this material toward the end of March through mid-April through a fertilizer spreader or sprayed by a lawn care company.  We will begin applications on our rough in this time frame as well.  We will also spray our zoysia tees and some of our green surrounds that are solid zoysia/bermuda.  Our cool season green surrounds will be sprayed with just the preemergent only because the non-selective will selectively kill our fescue/bluegrass/poa surrounds if we had it mixed in the tank.    

A close up of poa annua that we are trying to control.  There is some additional cool season grass mixed in with this stand.

Assistant Mike on 18 fairway spraying.  You can see the drops of foam that are appliced at the end of each side of the spray boom to help him with his next pass.

A view from the back of the application being made.  This application can only be made on dormant zoysia/bermuda.

Spot spray Poa annua around collars, approaches

Over the past couple of seasons, poa annua, bentgrass, and other cool season grasses have been popping up along perimeter of our bentgrass/poa annua approaches and are attempting to choke out the zoysia. Poa annua has loved the last two seasons of record rainfall and somewhat cooler temperatures. We apply preemergents in the late summer to reduce the level of infestation. Usually, the zoysia will out grow the poa annua and the heat of summer will help to eliminate the rest of the material. We just recently applied a very light application of Roundup on these areas. The picture below shows the backpack sprayer with a flat fan nozzle and a Weed Pro sponge applicator.

Weed Pro sponge applicator on the left and backpack sprayer on the right.
The picture below is on the front of #16 green between the bentgrass/poa annua approach on the right side of the camera case and to the left is the zoysia approach with the cool season grass contamination.

Over the next few weeks, the cool season grass along the collars should begin to turn yellow and will then die. We will probably have to do some additional spot applications where some poa annua might have been missed in the initial spraying. A majority of the zoysia grass should come back but we might have a couple of the more heavily infested spots which might have to be replaced with some new zoysia sod. We will evaluate each approach once they come out of dormancy in April for potential replacement.

Day to Day Duties

Some normal happenings going on this week at Glen Echo. We brought one additional crew member back this week and will begin to increase our staffing over the next couple of weeks.

I'm still fooling with the format of this blog. I appreciate your patience in case something is not quite in alignment. Photographic memory is not a part of my repertoire. I have to practice a few times before perfection can take its proper place.

Some areas of our greens did not get the holes filled all the way to the top as we normally do when we aerated our greens last week. All of our staff members worked this week at adding some additional sand to a number of greens to insure that a majority of the holes were filled to the top. We will be doing some additional lighter topdressings in the next week in an effort to improve ball roll and smoothness.

The picture below is a part of the sanding process that took place. We used our standard topdresser to place the material on the green. In this case, 14 green was in need of more sand-than I would have liked to have seen. The guys are using back pack blowers to help with blowing the sand in the holes as well as brooms. Greens were rolled and were then cut the next day.

The never ending work of tree litter pickup underneath our trees at Glen Echo. We continue to work on picking up the Sweet Gum balls as well. We need to hurry with this work because the grass is beginning to grow and we will have to be cutting on a regular basis in the not too distant future.














Assistant Mike spraying greens on Thursday with a micro-nutrient application and a soil
building product called Humega. http://biofloraag.com/Organic/humega.htm
Interesting bit of trivia, Eddie Albert of Green Acres fame was a front man for this company when I first got in the business in 1990.

Assistant Skip is putting a nice clean up mow on the zoysia tees. They are slowing beginning

to green up but are not growing as of yet. Our efforts were to help in cleaning up the surface and to cut off some of the dormant material. We are going to cut our tees at .5 inches this season instead of .55. Not a great deal of difference but I think the cut will be improved. We might raise the height slightly during the worst part of the summer to help the cool season tees survive the heat.

Assistant Mike using the vibratory roller on the 1st blue tee which we aerified at the same time as the greens. The aeration created some undulations and heaving of the turf's surface. The roller assisted in smoothing the surface of the tee.

Our babies continue to grow in the green house. Our impatiens started with about 3-4 leaves and now have more than 10 leaves per plant. A couple fatalities from time to time but all are doing pretty well. The tropicals are not liking these cooler nights. The hole in the wall on the left side of the picture is going to be where our heat duct from the building heating system is installed. My younger brother is a sheet metal worker and is going to fabricate the work for me. Space heaters are taking care of the heat for now.