Viridescent - the Asian Turfgrass Center blog

Articles By and About Asian Turfgrass Center, in Chinese

Golf People magazine have just published my article entitled A New Way of Looking at the Weather (in Chinese) in their October issue. I first published this as a handout for the Sustainable Turfgrass Management in Asia 2012 conference, to supplement my presentation of the same title. See the handout in English here.

I've written other articles that have been translated into Chinese. The Chinese versions of these articles can be downloaded here:

The Right Work at the Right Time

Course Maintenance Standards

Turfgrass Information Resources

GCM magazine's profile article about Micah Woods was also published by GCM China and can be downloaded here. 

Preparing for Overseeding Twelve Years Ago in Japan

Twelve years ago, I moved from Shanghai Links Golf and Country Club in China (pictured at right) to Japan, where I went to work as the superintendent at Habu Country Club in Chiba prefecture.

Habu CC has bentgrass greens and noshiba (Zoysia japonica) roughs, which is typical of golf courses near Tokyo, but it is unusual in that it has bermudagrass tees and fairways instead of the more typical korai (Zoysia matrella). 

At Habu, one of my first jobs was to overseed the tees and fairways with perennial ryegrass to prepare for the winter when the bermudagrass would be dormant. A new (for Japan) system was being implemented at the course in which golfers would drive 2-passenger Club Car carts on the fairways, rather than using caddy-driven 5-passenger carts that never left the cart paths.

When I first arrived, even though it was coming to the end of a hot summer, the bermudagrass was not especially vigorous. We applied some fertilizer to stimulate the bermuda to grow for a few weeks while the temperatures were still hot, before we would overseed at the end of September.

We began our preparations by verticutting the fairways, then sweeping up the debris. The fairways were mown, and then brushed, and then mown again, as we gradually lowered the mowing height down to 8 mm. 

The course remained open for play during these preparations, so we had to do our regular work such as raking bunkers, changing hole locations, and preparing the course for play in addition to our work getting the fairways ready for overseeding.

After the final mowing, we swept the fairways one last time, using all the equipment we had available, and then we were ready for seeding. Coming up in the next post, how we spread the seed and grew it.

Webcast from the Australian Turfgrass Conference: Micah Woods on grass selection in Asia

The Australian Golf Course Superintendents' Association provide a great service by making so many of the presentations from their annual conference available for online viewing. 

At the 27^th Australian Turfgrass Conference in Adelaide, I gave presentations about turfgrass nutrient requirements, about grass selection, and about managing turf in microclimates.

In this presentation about grass selection, I spoke primarily about manilagrass (Zoysia matrella), bermudagrass or green couch (Cynodon), and seashore paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum). You'll see in this video representative photos of the different grasses and will learn how manilagrass persists and provides a fine turf even with minimal maintenance. In Southeast Asia, seashore paspalum tends to be overtaken by bermudagrass, you will see, and bermudagrass tends to be overtaken by manilagrass. This short video makes a case for using more manilagrass and less bermudagrass and seashore paspalum.

Article About ATC in July GCM

An article in this month's Golf Course Management magazine focuses on my work with the Asian Turfgrass Center. 

As a longtime reader of this magazine and an 18 year member of GCSAA, it was fun to read this article about the work that I do. 

Read the article online here to learn about, among other things, why I decided to be a turfgrass scientist, how I came to work in Asia, what I'm working on now, how many miles I flew in the first half of 2012, what professional tour my dad played, at which university I am an adjunct professor, and what Dr. Frank Rossi, Nicer Landas, CGCS, Vu Minh Son, and Jin Hai Bo have to say about me and my work.

List of Climate Charts: China, India, Japan, and Global

I've made many climate charts this year, from the static ones that can be downloaded and printed, to the interactive ones that can be viewed and modified in a web browser. This is a list of all the charts that are available, starting with the interactive ones that show the changes in normal temperature, rainfall, and sunshine hours through the year.

Climatological normals for 50 world cities

Climatological normals for 46 world cities

Climatological normals for major Chinese cities, in English

Climatological normals for major Chinese cities, in Chinese

Climatological normals for major Indian and surrounding cities, in English

Climatological normals for major Indian and surrounding cities, in Hindi

Climatological normals for major Japanese cities, in Japanese

Climatological normals for major Japanese cities plus Atlanta and Bangkok, in Japanese

Climatological normals for Bangkok, Hong Kong, Kolkata, Miami, and Tokyo

I have also made a series of static charts that can be viewed online or downloaded and printed. These charts are from the dataset with climatological normals for 46 world cities.

The static charts were made using the ggplot2 package in R. The interactive motion charts were made using the googleVis package in R.

A Report From the 2011 China & US Golf Turf Seminar

I've been at Wuhan for a few days to participate in the 2011 China and US Golf Turf Seminar. This event is put on by the Shanghai Meinong Turf Engineering Co. and brought together 130 delegates from across China to hear lectures from Lee Sellars of Hong Kong-based Premier Turf, Professor Wang Zhaolong from Shanghai Jiatong University, and Micah Woods from the Asian Turfgrass Center. We also visited the Hanmaster Golf Country Club and took a tour of the certified Tifsport nursery operated by Meinong at Wuhan. Here is a slideshow of images from this event.

I also showed climatological normal data for 38 Chinese cities, explaining how the temperatures between Chinese cities and their counterparts in the US are similar throughout the year, but differences in sunshine duration create some challenges that must be considered when choosing grasses and when managing them in China. These charts of climatological normal data for Chinese cities can be accessed in English or with the city names in Chinese.

     

A Plot of Cities Where Warm-season Grasses Grow, and more

I made the bubble plot above to see how the differences in temperature and sunlight and rainfall between cities would appear if plotted this way. The data are from climatological normals provided by national meteorological services and the World Meteorological Organization, collected in some cases from the climate section of a city's page on Wikipedia.

I made this plot for a few reasons. I saw a job posting for a superintendent position in Asia saying that experience working in a Florida-type climate would be desired, and I wanted to plot a few cities this way to see how cities in Asia compared with Florida. Someone also asked me if I thought it was more difficult to manage warm-season grasses in Singapore or in Florida, and I thought that a plot such as this might make my answer more clear. And I also notice as I travel that a grass that grows so well in Honolulu, for example, may not grow well at all in Bangkok. There are clear differences in suitability of grasses for different growing environments. And as I work with some new software, I saw a tutorial to make this type of bubble plot on the FlowingData website and I wanted to try it for myself.

When plotted this way with mean annual temperature on one axis and hours of sunshine on another axis (the area of the circle for each city is proportional to annual rainfall), one can see that the cities in Asia tend to have a higher annual temperature, have less annual sunshine than the cities plotted from the USA, and have substantially more precipitation. A quick look at the bubble plot shows that Singapore, for example, has about 60% the sunshine of Miami while receiving almost twice the rainfall. 

This doesn't tell the whole story about which grasses perform best in a certain area. We can also consider the winter temperatures, the summer temperatures, the timing of rainfall and dry seasons, etc., but simply plotting by temperature and sunshine tells us a lot. 

Turfgrass managers in Southeast Asia know that zoysiagrass (Zoysia matrella) and broadleaf carpetgrass (Axonopus compressus) thrive in this climate while bermudagrass maintained as a turfgrass struggles. This type of plot helps us to understand why. At the Marukatayawan Palace in Thailand, we see that zoysia grows in the sun and broadleaf carpetgrass covers the shaded areas under the trees.

These native grasses thrive when maintained as turfgrass in this region, while grasses such as bermudagrass which have a higher light requirement cannot compete with zoysia even in full sun. Why is that? Because even in full sun, there is still relatively little sunshine in Southeast Asia compared with Florida.

Which is a Stronger Grass, Paspalum or Zoysia?

One of the most interesting research papers I have read in the past few years is this one, entitled "Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of the Weed Community in a Seashore Paspalum Turf," by Xie et al. from South China Agricultural University. With a title like that, I expected the article to explain what weeds were found in a seashore paspalum turf, where those weeds were, and when those weeds invaded. Were the weeds at the edge of the seashore paspalum area, or were they on a high spot, or in a low area with wet soil, or were the weeds particularly intense in their invasion at certain times of the year? The actual result of this experiment, however, was somewhat unexpected, and is less related to dynamics of a weed community in seashore paspalum than it is to the fitness of seashore paspalum as a turfgrass in Southeast Asia. And this is something that everyone involved in the maintenance of turfgrass in Asia should be aware of.

The experimental results published in Weed Science found that weeds emerged most frequently during the spring and summer at the experimental site at Guangzhou. No surprise there. But what is most surprising is this, and I quote from the researchers in their article: "the seashore paspalum turf has been naturally replaced by manilagrass." Manilagrass is Zoysia matrella.

The image above shows an area at the Asian Turfgrass Center's research facility that was planted to seashore paspalum and was maintained similar to a golf course fairway for three years, with regular fertilizer and irrigation applications and mowing every two days. During that time of regular maintenance, the paspalum grew fine. But in 2009, when we implemented a reduced maintenance program, with no irrigation and reduced frequency of mowing and reduced fertilization, the Salam seashore paspalum went dormant and in some areas was completely overtaken by other grasses, such as the manilagrass as shown above.

Based on what I have seen in Southeast Asia, seashore paspalum must be provided with enough fertilizer and water to maintain a steady growth rate. If the growth of seashore paspalum is allowed to slow, then it will tend to be invaded by bermudagrass, manilagrass, and other weeds. We commonly see this on golf courses, where bermudagrass that has somehow come onto the site will gradually overtake the seashore paspalum. And the research from Weed Science, and our observations at Thailand, show that manilagrass can overtake seashore paspalum as well.

If you are growing seashore paspalum in Southeast Asia, and if you want to keep this grass as the primary species over the long-term, then be vigilant in keeping other grasses out, and by all means maintain a steady growth rate on the seashore paspalum. Use sand topdressing as the primary means to control organic matter buildup and supplement that with coring and verticutting as needed. With extensive inputs, seashore paspalum will perform well in Southeast Asia. Without intensive maintenance, however, seashore paspalum does not persist and will be overgrown by bermudagrass, manilagrass, or other plants more suited to this growing environment.

At Hainan Island, a Great Conference With a Long Name

I've just attended an excellent conference at Sanya on the southern tip of Hainan Island, where I gave three presentations about turfgrass science. The full name of the conference is 2010 Summer Conference of Course Committee of Hainan Golf Association and China & US Turf Seminar, or 海南省高尔夫球协会场地管理委员会2010夏季会议暨中美高尔夫草坪交流研讨会.

There are about thirty golf courses at Hainan Island now, with another fifteen or so under construction and scores more in planning. I had a chance to visit a few of the golf courses where I saw lots of seashore paspalum and hybrid bermudagrass, the two main species of turfgrass used on the courses at Hainan. Around the clubhouses and on hotel lawns one may find a fine-textured zoysia -- manilagrass. Many of the courses are using grass grown on the Sino-Green Turf Company's certified nurseries which are located near Haikou, and it was Sino-Green's General Manager, Kevin Feng, along with the Hainan Golf Association's Course Committee, who invited me to speak at the Summer Conference.

The 2010 Summer Conference had 300 registrants and although most of the delegates were from Hainan Island, we also had delegates from Hong Kong, the United States, Indonesia (via Korea), and obviously from all parts of China —Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and more.

I spoke about choosing the type of grass that will work well for your project, how to develop a maintenance plan for grass at Hainan Island, gave an overview of some recent turfgrass research results in Asia, discussed the maintenance of the turf at Pebble Beach Golf Links for the US Open Championship, and answered lots of questions from a very involved audience. Parson Yao from Nanjing handled the translation for my three presentations and did a tremendous job. At these type of seminars, the translator is more valuable than the keynote speaker, actually.

More speakers included Professor Hu Lin from China Agricultural University who spoke about golf development in China and land resources, Lee Sellars from Premierturf Services who gave a talk on successful management of Tifeagle greens, and Dr. Rocky Shi from Syngenta who spoke about diseases of golf course turf at Hainan. The venue was superb. We held the seminars and the dinner at China's largest beachfront five star hotel, the Howard Johnson Resort Sanya Bay. If you ever have a chance to attend this conference in the future, I am sure it will be well worth your time. I was very impressed with the organization, the venue, and especially the great delegates, and I look forward to participating in future seminars at Hainan.

China Golf Show 2010 at Beijing

I was at Beijing this weekend for the China Golf Show. I don't know the exact attendance, but the three day show was busy each day and the China National Convention Center made an excellent venue. The convention center is right next to the Olympic Park. 

This comprehensive golf show included exhibitors of golf maintenance equipment and their distributors in China, golf course architects, management companies, equipment, golf balls, golf course and housing developments, in short, a complete show for the golf enthusiast, whether working in the golf industry or not.

 

The show was a fun time for me because I was able to see so many friends. It was a bit of a Shanghai Links reunion (I was the golf course superintendent there from 1998 to 2000) on 17 April when so many of us who had worked there in the late 1990's were all at the show. Above you see Liu Guangjin (at left,now a superintendent in Hefei), me, and William King (at right, now with Witgang); we all worked together at Shanghai Links a decade ago. Others formerly at Shanghai Links who I met at the show included David Young, now Director of China Operations for Nelson-Haworth design, Parson Yao (pictured with me below) of Meinong Group and other business interests, and Marcus Fishenden, Director of Operations - Asia for Troon Golf.

With so much new construction in China, there are always many golf course architects exhibiting at the China Golf Show. I talked with a number of architects including Harley Kruse from Greg Norman Design, Peter Thomson and Ross Perrett from their eponymous design firm, and Martin Ebert and Tom Mackenzie from Mackenzie & Ebert. There are a number of excellent new courses being built in China and in other parts of Asia. Choosing the right grasses for each golf course can be quite a challenge and my talks with golf course architects are usually centered around grasses, which work well where, what type of playability can be achieved with different grasses, and what types of maintenance are required for different grasses.

I especially liked the entrance fee for a visitor to the show: 10 RMB (less than USD $2). For me this is the best golf industry trade show in Asia. It is more comprehensive and larger than those held in other countries, covering all aspects of the golf industry, the Asia managers from major industry companies are all in attendance, and it is fun.