Viridescent - the Asian Turfgrass Center blog

Turf Seminars at Osaka, Ishikawa, and Tokyo

I was at Japan this month for seminars at Osaka and Ishikawa (for Royal Turf Co.) and at Tokyo (in a seminar organized by Asian Turfgrass Center). At Osaka and Ishikawa, I spoke about successful interseeding of creeping bentgrass. The focus of my seminar was how to modify the growing environment of the turfgrass so that existing grass can grow well, and also how to create the desired growing environment for establishing new seedlings if improved bentgrass varieties such as 007 or Tyee are to be introduced.

 

At the Royal Turf Co. seminars, Dr. Richard Hurley from Rutgers University and Moriso-san, greenkeeper at Higashi-Hirono Golf Club, also gave presentations about 007 creeping bentgrass and successful management of putting greens at Japan.

Then on 18 January at Tokyo I gave a full-day seminar about Turf Science for the Greenkeeper, starting a series of three seminars on this topic by speaking about plant growth and cell expansion, photosynthesis, water use of turfgrass, and how the scientific principles can be applied by greenkeepers in their work. This seminar (and the upcoming ones on March 15 and April 15) are supported by Syngenta, The Toro Co., and Simplot. Click here for a photo gallery of images from the 18 January seminar.

The Wow Factor, Seashore Paspalum and Dollar Spot

The Wow Factor, Seashore Paspalum and Dollar Spot is now posted on the Turf Diseases Blog and may be of interest to those who manage seashore paspalum in Asia.

I will be contributing some posts to the Turf Diseases Blog on topics related turfgrass diseases in Asia. For information about all types of turfgrass diseases on warm and cool season grasses, and for advice on the management of these diseases from expert plant pathologists, you will want to read the Turf Diseases Blog this year.

Asian Turfgrass Center 2009 Report

I prepared a short annual report with an overview of the work undertaken by Asian Turfgrass Center in 2009. You may be interested to learn that I wrote 20,504 words for publication in fourteen articles, that ATC websites were visited by people from 88 different countries, or that I spoke at conferences in eight countries. You can read all about those details and more by downloading the Asian Turfgrass Center 2009 Report.

 

March Turfgrass Seminar Registration Now Open!

Registration is now open for the Sustainable Turfgrass Management in Asia 2010 conference, being held from 8 to 10 March at Pattaya, Thailand. Click here to go to the registration page, where you can find the registration forms available for download in English or in Thai.

The Thailand GCSA along with the Asian Turfgrass Center are working now to put together the final details of the field seminar, the expert speakers are preparing their materials, and travel plans are being made for many people who will travel from outside Thailand to attend this conference. We hope to see you here in Thailand for a fun and educational event.

And don't forget, for those who want to earn GCSAA continuing education points, the conference has been approved for 1.75 points.

Golf Course Renovation, Grass Selection, & Manilagrass

I visited the Philippines a few times last month and was again impressed by how well manilagrass (Zoysia matrella) performs there. The classic East Course at Wack Wack Country Club in Manila is undergoing a restoration project that leaves the manilagrass greens untouched. The grass on these greens is relatively free of disease, has a very low fertilizer requirement, and provides a fast and firm putting surface. By using native grasses on the fairways (primarily Axonopus compressus, known as Carabao grass in the Philippines) and on the greens, Wack Wack CC's East Course provides a classic test of golf and uses grasses that require almost no inputs apart from mowing and irrigation.

Why do I mention these grasses? Because the use of the native grasses is surprisingly uncommon when golf courses are built or renovated in Southeast Asia today. There are some situations where bermudagrass (Cynodon) may be the right choice, and there are occasions when seashore paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum) is the right choice, but for many golf projects, using native grasses such as zoysiagrass or carpetgrass would be a better choice. Why?

• The native grasses require less fertilizer than bermudagrass or seashore paspalum
• The native grasses are generally more resistant to diseases, insect, and weed invasion than or bermudagrass or seashore paspalum
• Pesticide use on native grasses is minimal
• It costs a lot less to maintain native grasses
• Some of the best courses in Southeast Asia use them! Sentosa GC in Singapore has zoysia fairways and roughs, the aforementioned Wack Wack CC has carpetgrass and the greens are zoysia, Hong Kong Golf Club has carpetgrass and zoysiagrass on most of the property, and the best new course in Asia Pacific for 2009, Banyan Golf Club in Thailand, uses native zoysia for fairways and roughs
• The course presentation and playability with native grasses is still very good
• There is a lot more flexibility in the maintenance when native grasses are used

What do I mean by "flexibility in maintenance"? Above we see a native manilagrass (Zoysia matrella) lawn beside swimming pools at the Anvaya Cove development near Subic Bay. At the swimming pool, with virtually no maintenance, zoysia is a foolproof grass. It just grows along, slowly, providing the desired groundcover. Below we see the exact same grass at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial (as an aside, do go there if you are ever at Manila -- the cemetery is a beautiful, quiet, and moving place, with 17,202 graves of military dead of WWII).

The native grasses can be maintained to look green and lush, or dry and close-cropped to the ground, and the native grasses don't die. There is less flexibility with imported bermudagrass or seashore paspalum. Without the optimum amounts of water, fertilizer, and pesticides, the bermudagrass or seashore paspalum cannot provide a good playing surface in Southeast Asia. With native grasses, there is a lot of flexibility in the type of surface that can be created. But don't try to get too flexible with seashore paspalum or bermudagrass, or those grasses will fail.

Turf Management Best Practice Conference at Spring City

I was at the Spring City Golf and Lake Resort last week to speak at the Turf Management Best Practice conference organized by Spring City and Elmwood College with support from The R&A and companies such as Witgang Far East, The Toro Co., and Syngenta. In addition to my presentation on Integrated Pest and Turf Management (click here for a report on this talk at sina.com), I also led a field workshop along with Gordon McKie (course manager of the Old Course at St. Andrews), speaking to over 150 greenkeepers from China about how to create the desired playability on their golf courses. I am pictured at right along with Dr. Zhaolong Wang, professor at Shanghai Jiatong University.

 

The Spring City Resort is rightly recognized as the best golf resort in Asia, and the two golf courses there were presented in excellent condition. The greens were extremely fast and smooth, the fairways provided a great lie for every shot, and the views, as you can see from the photo of the Lake Course above, are remarkable. This is a great venue for such a conference, and the sold-out registrations for this event shows that both the content of the talks and the venue for this conference were aptly chosen for the audience of greenkeepers from China.

For a full report on the conference (in Chinese), see the Turf Management 2009 page at sports.sina.com.

Along with Dr. Hu Lin from China Agricultural University and Gordon McKie from St. Andrews, I shared information about the use of water and fertilizer on golf courses in China and how the turfgrass playing conditions can be optimized. 

ATC's Turf Science Seminars 2010 (ターフサイエンス セミナー2010)

I will be speaking at three full-day seminars about turfgrass science for the greenkeeper in the next few months. First, on 18 January, I will explain why turfgrass science is important for the greenkeeper and how turf science can be applied to turfgrass management. On 15 March I will discuss the science of turfgrass soils and how those soils can be managed to create the desired conditions. And I will wrap up this topic on April 15, immediately after the Masters Tournament, with a seminar about how turfgrass science can be applied to the management of playing surfaces. Each seminar will be held at Shinjuku.

These seminars are offered at a very reasonable price, thanks to the generous support of The Toro Co., Simplot, and Syngenta.

For more information, download the seminar brochure here or go to the Hugh Enterprise website for additional details and more information about registration for these seminars.

Golf Course Visits and Tournament Sponsorship in Philippines

I was at the Philippines last week to play in the Founders Cup tournament at The Orchard Golf and Country Club. As sponsors of the tournament, Asian Turfgrass Center along with Bernhard and Company were able to enter a team in the sponsors division, and playing off scratch (I don't have an official handicap at present, unfortunately!) along with Steve Wilson, Business Development Manager Asia Pacific for Bernhard, we made a respectable showing at the challenging Palmer and Player courses over which the tournament was contested. The Palmer course has Tifeagle bermudagrass greens, while the Player course has greens of Sea Isle 2000 seashore paspalum. During the tournament, course superintendent Jelly Palmes had the greens on both courses in excellent condition, rolling at a good speed and providing a superb playing surface. Below is the 7^th green of the Player course, showing its seashore paspalum green with the par five 9^th hole in the background.

 

I had planned to be at the Philippines for the Founders Cup and to meet other friends in the golf course industry. It turned into a busy week, as I visited Manila Golf Club on the day of my arrival, played in the Chairman's Cup tournament at Sherwood Hills the next morning, went to Wack Wack Country Club and saw the renovation project there, and played practice rounds at Orchard for the Founders Cup. In less than five days I had been to five different golf courses, and later in the week I also went to Manila Southwoods and to TAT Filipinas.

I was at TAT Filipinas Golf Club in October for a turfgrass advisory visit and I was there again this week to meet delegates from the East Asian Seas Congress 2009 who were making a field trip to see the sustainability initiatives at TAT Filipinas under the direction of club president Edna Paña and manager Joe Dagdagan. I spoke with Dr. Mok Mareth (pictured at right), the Senior Minister of Cambodia's Ministry of Environment. We discussed golf and the environment, two subjects which Dr. Mareth and I are both passionate about.

Relieving Turfgrass Stress: Part 1

Whenever I see unhealthy turfgrass, my first advice is to relieve plant stress. Relieving plant stress may involve adjusting the amount of water or air in the soil, optimizing the availability of essential plant nutrients, increasing the mowing height to allow more light absorption by the leaves, and very important but sometimes overlooked is this: cutting the grass cleanly.

My front lawn near Bangkok has three sections. Near the driveway is St. Augustine grass (Stenotaphrum secundatum), in the center section is centipedegrass (Eremochloa ophiuroides), and in the corner in broadleaf carpetgrass (Axonopus compressus). I took a selection of photos from the St. Augustine grass section last week, showing the damage that can occur when mower blades are not sharp or are not adjusted properly. Because St. Augustine grass has a wide leaf blade, the damage from dull mowers is especially evident in these photos.

The tip of an unmown St. Augustine grass leaf has a boat-shaped tip. This is how a normal leaf tip looks, at right, with no damage at all from mowing. Once we mow the grass, what kind of damage can we expect? Remember, by relieving stress on the grass, we can make it healthier. If we have healthier turfgrass, we can manage it to create the desired playing surface. Obviously grass must be mowed to create the desired playing surface, so we need a good plan for mowing to avoid putting undue stress on the grass.

Here is another leaf of St. Augustine grass from my lawn, but it has been mowed. You can still see the V-shaped leaf, but the boat-shaped tip of the leaf is now gone. A small amount of yellow scarring is visible at the mown tip, but this is a basically clean cut with no shredding. This is the type of clean cut you want because it minimizes the stress on the turfgrass plant.

At bottom right is what you don't want to see when you mow. This is another St. Augustine grass leaf from my front lawn. The damage and shredding at the leaf tip from cutting with a dull mower puts stress on the grass and causes a problem with plant health, with visual appearance of the turf, and eventually that causes a problem with playability as well.

So to relieve stress on your turf, make sure that you are mowing with sharp, well-adjusted mowers, and that you are getting a clean cut and not one that is shredding the turf. Sometimes from a distance you can see a whitish or yellowish tinge to the grass; upon closer inspection (get down and have a look at the leaf tips) you may see that the leaves themselves are green and healthy but the leaf tips are shredded and damaged by the mower.

Also, think about what mowing height is appropriate to give the desired playing conditions and appearance. And if you mow the grass with a thoughtful and creative mowing pattern, you can improve the appearance of the grass while reducing some other inputs.

Golf and the Environment in Vietnam

I was surprised to read "A Harvest of Golf Courses From Vietnam's Farmland" in the NY Times and International Herald Tribune. It didn't match what I know of the golf industry in Vietnam or the work done by my friends there. I have worked with Hanoi Golf Club and have visited other course in the Hanoi, Dalat, and Ho Chi Minh City areas -- I am familiar with golf course maintenance in Vietnam.

The NY Times piece about golf in Vietnam, written by Seth Mydans, included a number of misapprehensions about the golf industry in Vietnam, particularly in the areas of water use and land use. So I was pleased to see Mandarin Media's article "Off Course: Did the International Herald Tribune get its story straight on golf in Vietnam?", which presents another view of the golf industry in Vietnam and provides clarification on some of the issues raised by Mydans. Both articles are worth reading in their entirety for anyone interested in golf development in Vietnam specifically and golf courses and the environment generally.

Mydans' article quotes Le Anh Tuan (of the Can Tho University Environmental Technology Center) as saying that an 18-hole golf course could consume 177,000 cubic feet (about 5,000 m³) of water per day. This would be the peak water use during the hottest and driest time of year, assuming 70 hectares of irrigated turf. However, the actual amount of water used can be much less (see the photo from Hanoi Golf Club above). I have done advisory work with Hanoi Golf Club, and at that course, even at the driest times of the year, most of the course remains unirrigated, with the key playing corridors receiving just enough water to sustain the health of the plants, and no more. The effective irrigated area here is more like 25 ha, and the amount of water applied is only a fraction of what one would infer from reading the article in the NY Times. During rainy weather, of course, the use of irrigation water on turf is nil.

Other courses such as Vietnam Golf and Country Club at Ho Chi Minh City use an organic fertilizer (see the storage tank at right) that is produced as a byproduct from a large MSG factory nearby. This industrial waste is recycled and used to great effect on this course, which is also a Laureate Course of the International Golf and Life Foundation (IGOLF). The chairman of IGOLF is Paul Sochaczewski, a superb storyteller and award-winning journalist who has written a number of articles about golf and the environment, many of which can be downloaded here.

For more information about golf courses and the environment and the best management practices for golf courses to follow, I suggest looking also at the Golf Environment Organisation website and The R&A course management website. For more information about turfgrass management in Asia, see a selection of articles at the Asian Turfgrass Center's turfgrass information page.