Cultural
Video: Siri Talks Turf
By now, you probably know that "Siri", the new iPhone 4S voice–assistant feature, can do everything from taking dictation to finding the closest Italian restaurants. But what does she know about turfgrass management? More than you might imagine, as PACE Turf's own resident super-nerd, Dr. Larry Stowell, shows you in the YouTube video, "Siri Talks Turf".
Rainfall impact on sodium leaching at Denver Country Club
In the July 13, 2011 Super Journal report, "Rainfall impact on sodium leaching at Denver Country Club" (1.3 MB pdf document), we show the dramatic and positive impact that spring rainfall can have on reducing soil sodium and salinity.
In short, we saw that a 2.5 inch rainfall, which occurred over a 36 hour period during the spring of 2011, resulted in a 41% reduction in sodium, and a 19% reduction in overall soil salts.
In addition to causing general stress to turf and potential issues with soil physical properties, high sodium and high salts are also associated with rapid blight, a disease caused by Labyrinthula terrestris. In years when winter and spring rainfall is low, it may therefore be necessary to leach greens with good quality domestic water in order to avoid reaching the maximum levels of 110 ppm sodium that can result in rapid blight infestation.
Project title: Rainfall impact on sodium leaching at Denver Country Club
Principal investigator: Doug Brooks, Denver Country Club and Larry Stowell, Ph.D., CPAg, PACE Turf LLC
Further reading:
- PACE Turf Super Journal Report, "Rainfall impact on sodium leaching at Denver Country Club" (1.3 MB pdf document) posted 7/13/11
- Spreadsheet for calculating sodium hazard of irrigation water (18 KB Excel spreadsheet)
- Video: sodium accumulation
- PACE Super Journal report: Evaluating the sodium hazard in your irrigation water
Video: Kikuyugrass aeration and topdressing
In this video, we illustrate the aeration and topdressing process that was developed by Brian Archbold, El Niguel Country Club, for management of kikuyugrass fairways. Brian has been using this process consistently for 5 years with good results. He switches to solid tines for aeration if he feels that the process will result in too many complaints from unhappy golfers. Brian aerates fairways in May, August and September. The process involves the following steps:
- Heavy irrigation several days prior to aeration to insure that the soil is receptive to aeration
- Core aeration using 1.25 inch diameter tines to a depty of 6 - 8 inches
- Application of 12 tons of sand per acre
- Flail vertical mow to break up cores and incorporate sand
- Drag to further break up cores and incorporate sand
- Mow to complete the process
