Viridescent - the Asian Turfgrass Center blog

Turfgrass Teaching in India

I spent the last month at Kolkata, New Delhi, Mumbai, Coimbatore, Kodaikanal, and Bangalore, conducting a Greenkeeper Education Programme for the Indian Golf Union. Working with technical experts from the Asian Golf Industry Federation, we taught a series of weeklong courses in each of the country's four zones, providing practical information covering many aspects of golf course maintenance, with a focus on these topics:

• grass selection for golf courses in India
• how to produce the desired playing conditions
• operation and maintenance of reel and rotary mowers
• preventative maintenance of golf course machinery
• safe operation of turfgrass equipment
• introduction to irrigation, plant nutrition, and management of soil organic matter
• on-course sessions to investigate and apply what was learned in the classroom

The primary grass used on golf courses in India is Cynodon (bermudagrass). Some courses have been planted with Paspalum vaginatum (seashore paspalum). Zoysia matrella is used in landscape areas and on a few courses the zoysia has invaded the Cynodon but has not yet been planted on a golf course. Axonopus compressus grows well and provides the playing surface on many courses in the country. Those are the main grasses we discussed, although there is isolated use of Stenotaphrum secundatum, Pennisetum clandestinum, and Digitaria didactyla in the South, and there are some courses at high elevation at which cool-season grasses can grow.

This programme is supported by The R&A and aims to provide information and education that greenkeepers in India can use to develop improved playing conditions on the many golf courses across the country. See photos from the IGU Greenkeeper Education Programme here, or read more about the programme at its dedicated website.

More About Golf Course Floods at Thailand

The widespread flooding in Thailand has covered millions of hectares. These images from satellite photos taken on October 24 (downloaded from the United Nations Institute for Training and Research website, then cropped and annotated by me), show a few of the golf courses at Pathum Thani and Ayudhaya. 

And here is my former residence at Sam Khok. No dry land to be seen.

Golf Course Flooding at Thailand

Yesterday on a flight departing Bangkok I flew over much of the flooded area in central Thailand. Riverdale Golf Club was still dry (above), but the adjacent 27 holes at Bangkok Golf Club are all flooded. See below for the normally sedate appearance of Bangkok GC (July 2009). 

Many of the courses around Bangkok are flooded or are at risk of inundation during these floods, as are many areas of the city. Here are dramatic images of the flooding in a photo gallery from The Atlantic. For the golf courses that are flooded, I expect the grass to survive. Fortunately, the warm-season grasses that are used at courses around Bangkok, zoysia, bermuda, and seashore paspalum, are able to tolerate weeks and even months of submersion. Dr. Jack Fry's paper Submersion Tolerance of Warm-season Turfgrasses explains that zoysia and bermuda can survive for two or three months under water. Research at Singapore found that seashore paspalum tolerated waterlogging and it is expected to recover as well once the flood waters recede.

In October 2006, when the Asian Turfgrass Center was being constructed at Bangsai GC in Ayuddhaya province north of Bangkok, floodwaters from the same river overflowed their banks and it was necessary to increase the height of the dike wall around the research area (right). That dike wall has been raised again, and it was raised yet again this year to protect the property from the floods.

Now five years later, the course is again at the risk of flooding but the higher flood barriers around it have so far protected the course from the rising waters. I flew over Ayuddhaya yesterday, and one can see the 27 holes at Bangsai, the only dry land for kilometers in the flooded Chao Praya basin.

Ten Years Ago on a Golf Course in Japan: part 2

I was the golf course superintendent at Habu CC in Chiba prefecture near Tokyo from September 2000 to August 2001. Ten years later, I'm spending this summer at Japan, partly to study and collect data about turfgrass performance, but also to remember what it is like to be a superintendent. Now halfway through my time at Japan this summer, I've come up with a list of three reasons why it is especially difficult to be a golf course superintendent here.

1. During July and August it is too hot for creeping bentgrass to grow well. This afternoon on a golf course at Chiba, the soil temperatures of a Penncross creeping bentgrass green were 36.3° at 2.5 cm, 34.8° at 5 cm, and 32.4° at 10 cm. Since July 1, I've yet to record a soil temperature on a creeping bentgrass green at less than 23.4°. In August, it is hotter on average at Osaka than it is at Atlanta, Miami, and Singapore. Tokyo is also hot and humid, averaging 31.1° for a high each day in August, with a relative humidity of 71%. That makes for a heat index in the shade of 37.6° C (99.7° F) on average every day in August.

2. So with such hot temperatures, we would need to have good irrigation systems, right? But golf courses in Japan have irrigation systems that are inadequate for the needs of the grass. There are essentially no quick couplers, so hand-watering, if done at all, is usually done by applying water from portable 1000 L tanks. This is not very effective but when there are no quick couplers, one doesn't have many other options. Most courses don't have fairway irrigation at all, and even the courses with the best irrigation systems are likely to have just a single-row system. Supplying water to the grass during the summer is one of the most difficult tasks to manage for golf course superintendents in Japan. 

3. The hot summer months when the bentgrass struggles to survive and when irrigation water is applied however it can be are also the times when the Zoysia matrella (korai) fairways and Zoysia japonica (noshiba) roughs are growing at their fastest rate, requiring more frequent mowing. With the need for handwatering and also the need for more frequent mowing during the summers, it is especially challenging then, at Japan, to have relatively small crew sizes. Most courses have only ten to fifteeen people working on course maintenance. It is a real struggle to complete all the necessary work.

I remember dealing with all of these challenges when I worked at Habu CC ten years ago. After visiting so many golf courses this summer, I see these same three challenges for golf course superintendents still exisit. During the turf science seminars I give in the winter, the most popular topics include management of soil moisture, managing creeping bentgrass during the summer, and management of ultradwarf bermudagrass. Each of those topics is in some way related to the three points identified above as the reason why Japan is one of the most difficult places to be a golf course superintendent.

Try This Technique for Improving Drainage

It is always a challenge to manage areas with poor drainage, and on sandcapped turfgrass areas the drainage can be quite problematic once organic matter builds up over the sand layer. Topdressing and aerififying and verticutting can all be used to dilute or remove organic matter, but when the organic layer gets too thick, it holds a lot of moisture, negating the value of the sandcap and creating an ideal growing environment for weeds.

The image above shows how an organic layer develops on a sandcapped fairway, and the image at right shows how weedy species have colonized the surface of what was once a zoysia fairyway. The buildup of organic matter over sandcapped fairways is why I have often suggested that sandcapping is not an ideal way to construct a fairway. Sandcapped fairways require more maintenance and deteriorate over time. Topdressed fairways, on the other hand, require less maintenance and improve over time.

But no matter what type of soil you have, this tip from Larry Gilhuly at the USGA is one that might be useful for you. Have you ever encountered areas with excessive organic matter buildup that slows water from infiltrating into the soil? Gilhuly asks,

"Can this condition be easily fixed at no cost or should all of these locations have complete renovation? . . . Sand topdressing and regular aeration are used to help negate the problems of excess organic material, but often this is not enough. After testing several methods to dry these areas, Rich Taylor, CGCS, struck upon the idea of using cup cutters spaced every one to two feet to go as deep as possible. The excessive organic material and some soil is removed and replaced with sand. This change essentially creates multiple dry wells in the area. If the soil underneath has reasonable permeability, the results are fast and effective. Follow-up sand topdressing is then practiced to minimize future layers. In the past few years, previous wet areas around the greens are now gone by using this simple technique."

Read the entire article on the USGA website here.

Bangkok's Best Park, Algae, and Phosphorus

This afternoon I was at my favorite park in Bangkok, the King Rama IX Park. This park is near my residence and when I am in Bangkok I frequently go to this park in the early morning or late afternoon for jogging. Today I noticed a lot of algae growing in the ponds —see above the clean water amongst the Victoria amazonica lilies and the algae everywhere else — and was reminded of three things I wanted to share about phosphorus, and phosphorus fertilizer applied to turfgrass in particular. 

1. Phosphorus is essential for food production, is a limited resource, and common sense tells us that we should not apply it to turf if it is not absolutely necessary. Earlier this year I read an interesting article in Foreign Policy entitled Peak Phosphorus. The authors argue that "our dwindling supply of phosphorus, a primary component underlying the growth of global agricultural production, threatens to disrupt food security across the planet during the coming century. This is the gravest natural resource shortage you've never heard of."

I can assure you, if there is adequate phosphorus in the soil, adding more will have no beneficial affect to the turf. How can you tell if phosphorus is necessary? By a routine soil analysis. I use 35 parts per million (ppm) phosphorus on a Mehlich 3 soil test as a conservative threshold level for deciding whether phosphorus fertilizer is required or not. If you are applying fertilizer without doing a soil test, you are probably wasting money and over-applying phosphorus. And if you are applying phosphorus fertilizer to turfgrass growing on soil that has 35 ppm phosphorus or more, you may as well shred money and apply that to the grass. The effect on the turf will be the same.

2. Back to the algae in the water at the Rama IX Park, that algae would not be growing if there was not phosphorus in the water. Phosphorus is usually the limiting factor in algal blooms (eutrophication) of water bodies. Adding phosphorus to turfgrass when that phosphorus is not needed will increase the risk of polluting nearby water bodies and will have no effect on the grass.

3. People ask me how to prevent algae from growing on putting greens. There are a number of techniques to employ, but an essential one is to avoid unnecessary applications of phosphorus. Dr. John Kaminski, Director of the Golf Turf Management Program at Pennsylvania State University, has done research on creeping bentgrass turf during summer conditions to evaluate the effect of different fertilizers on algae. In summary, the results have shown that applying nitrogen only (particularly ammonium sulfate, 21-0-0) prevents algae, while adding phosphorus causes a tremendous increase in algae. From a paper Kaminski published in the International Turfgrass Society Research Journal, there was no algae (0%) in plots fertilized through the summer with ammonium sulfate. A complete fertilizer containing phosphorus (20-20-20) always had algae and in some cases more than 20% of the surface area was covered by algae rather than grass. If you often have an algae problem on your greens, you may want to reevaluate your phosphorus fertilization program.

Managing Grass at Tiger Woods Dubai

I recently made my third visit to the Tiger Woods Dubai with its golf course superintendent Cameron Thompson. In 2008 I saw the site when shaping was just beginning, last year saw it with three holes grassed, and now was able to look at six holes grassed and other holes shaped and with irrigation installed and ready for grassing.

One thing that is notable is the summer heat at Dubai. The thermometer in the morning at the site read 44° C in the shade. With those types of temperatures, the evapotranspiration is high; the average annual evapotranspiration at Dubai is more than 2,000 mm. Careful management of the irrigation is essential to have high quality grass.

I did some irrigation water analyses for Tiger Woods Dubai and one thing that stood out in the samples was the relatively high amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus. The water being used is treated sewage effluent from the city of Dubai. Thompson said he looks at irrigating with this water as "free fertigation" and he has not applied fertilizer to the fairways or greens for more than six months. The nutrients in the water are sufficient for the grass. And the grass looks great! There are no photographs allowed of this exclusive course, so I can't post anything here, but I would describe the course as spectacular.

At Dubai, it is essential to know what is in the irrigation water, and at courses in Asia it is also essential to know what is in the water. Have you done an irrigation water test recently? I usually recommend doing an irrigation water analysis about one month prior to the onset of the busiest irrigation season or summer or dry season, whatever it may be in a certain area.

And what grass is used at Tiger Woods Dubai? Tifeagle bermudagrass is on the tees and greens, Tifdwarf is used on some low-cut approach areas, and Tifway 419 is used on the fairways and roughs. And Thompson has been practicing his short game on those closely mown green surrounds as he checks the response of the golf ball to the turfgrass conditions. That practice at Tiger Woods Dubai is paying off for him, as he handed me a rare defeat in a match we played at the Emirates Golf Club under the lights. Thompson didn't hit all the greens in regulation, but he had no problem getting the ball up and down from some precarious spots around the greens.

Nozzle Selection for Spraying Pesticides and Fertilizer

One of the topics I will discuss at next week's Sustainable Turfgrass Management in Asia 2010 seminar is nozzle selection, spray droplet size, and water volume. Depending on the product (fertilizer? herbicide? fungicide?) being applied, its mode of action, and the reason for the application, one can choose the nozzle type that will produce the most effective spray pattern on the turf.

The Turf Diseases blog has some good posts on this topic, including photos that show the drastic differences in spray patterns between different nozzles and tips on improving disease control by proper nozzle selection.

Don't Neglect Your Nozzles by Dr. John Kaminski

Mazel Tov! It's Nozzle Talk! by Dr. Megan Kennelly

Should I Water That In? by Dr. Lane Tredway

I also recommend reviewing the guide to nozzle selection that Tee-Jet publishes, available for download here.

Five Ways to Improve Turfgrass Conditions

I can actually think of ten simple ways to improve turfgrass conditions -- these are only the first five ways, and I will write more later about another five ways to improve grass. The article I wrote on this topic has been published in Golf Business Asia and can be downloaded here. So what do I think are the first five ways to improve turfgrass conditions?

1. Set course maintenance standards. If we have a certain level of grass quality, and want to reach an improved level of playability or appearance, we need to define what that standard is and what work must be implemented in order to achieve the desired quality level. For more details, an article I wrote on this topic can be downloaded here in English and downloaded here in Chinese (中文). A simple example is grass quality and tolerance of weeds in the fairways. If there is no standard for this, than at what weed threshold are the fairways acceptable, or unacceptable? When I was a golf course superintendent I was not a big fan of these types of standards, thinking them extraneous, but I now think that written standards, no matter how simple, are the starting point for any turfgrass management (or turfgrass improvement) program.

2. Choose the right grass. I cannot overemphasize this enough. There are certain grasses that are well-adapted to certain growing conditions and that can be managed to provide the desired playing surface. There are other grasses that are less well-adapted to your growing conditions and that require a tremendous amount of maintenance in order to produce the desired playing surface. Or perhaps you struggle to achieve the type of playing surface that you want. Would a different species of grass or an improved variety of the one you are currently growing help to improve turfgrass conditions? It seems like a lot of wasted resources to manage grass that is not well-adapted to your site. For more information about this, you can search for the information you are looking for. There are some excellent turfgrass specific information resources available online, and I wrote about the best of them (in English) and you can also download the article about information resources in Chinese (中文). Also, you may wish to read an article I wrote for Golf Business Asia about managing and choosing warm-season grasses. And you can see a selection of photos of different warm-season grasses, along with some advantages and disadvantages of each, at this photo gallery.

3. Fertilize the right amount. This is critical for improving the grass. If I want to be healthier, one of the first things the doctor will tell me to do is to evaluate my diet, right? And I should eat a balanced diet with the right amount of fruits and vegetables and vitamins and minerals and so on. Well, grass is the same way, except it is a lot simpler. With grasses, we can conduct a routine soil nutrient analysis (a laboratory test of the soil's chemical properties) to determine how much of the essential plant nutrients are present in the soil, and how much should be added as fertilizer. In many soils, there is already enough phosphorus to meet the needs of the grass, and in some cases there is enough potassium as well. If there is not enough, then we simply add more. The key element to get right in the fertilization program is nitrogen. This is like me, if I am on a diet, being concerned about how many calories I eat every day. Eating more calories than I burn each day will make me gain weight, while burning more calories than I eat results in me losing weight. If the grass gets too much nitrogen it will grow too quickly, and if the grass doesn't have enough nitrogen it will become yellow and grow too slowly. The goal is to control the growth rate of the grass to create the desired improvement to turfgrass conditions by applying exactly the right amount of nitrogen. For many grasses, a good starting point for the amount of nitrogen to apply is about 3 g N m^-2 month^-1, during the seasons when the weather is conducive to vigorous grass growth. The exact amount of nitrogen to apply can be adjusted based on the turfgrass performance. For more information about this, see this article I wrote for Golf Course Seminar (in Japanese, 日本語) or this article from the Hawaii GCSA newsletter.

4. Mow with a plan. After choosing the right grass and applying the right fertilizer, there is no way to get the desired quality without mowing properly. That means using mowers with sharpened blades, set at the proper mowing height, and operated at the optimum mowing frequency for a particular area. And as long as the mowers are going to be sent out to mow the grass, why not mow an attractive pattern into the grass? This may be a type of stripe or checkerboard or even no stripes at all, but it takes a plan to achieve the desired appearance after mowing. Get the mowing right and the grass conditions will almost certainly improve.

5. Keep the grass as dry as possible. Or perhaps more accurately, keep the soil as dry as possible. How is that going to improve turfgrass conditions? If the soil is kept dry, there will be more air space in the soil. When the water content of the soil is high, there is not much space for air. Grass roots grow better when there is plenty of air space in the soil, and if you can establish a healthy root system, the playing surfaces will be more stress tolerant and the grass plants will be more healthy. To really manage the soil moisture, I find it is extremely useful to use a soil moisture meter such as the Hydrosense from Campbell Scientific, the Theta-Probe from Delta-T Devices, or the TDR Meters from Spectrum Technologies. For most turfgrass sites, I like to maintain the soil moisture at more than 10% (by volume) and less than 25%. You can find the optimum range for your site, and by using one of these meters, you can monitor the soils as they dry, only applying water when the soil reaches the critical point when the grass will begin to wilt. I wrote about soil water management extensively in this article for Golf Course Seminar (in Japanese, 日本語) and in Irrigation for Bentgrass Greens: Theory and Practice (for the Kanto Golf Association and also in Japanese, 日本語). If you are interested to know more about this, please send me an e-mail inquiry or leave a comment here.

Waterlogged Soils and Turfgrass Performance

A fascinating project looking at turfgrass growth in waterlogged conditions is being conducted at Singapore's HortPark by graduate student Vivek Govindasamy and his advisor Dr. Kenneth Marcum, Senior Researcher with CUGE Research - Turf Science. At Singapore there is a lot of rain, averaging almost 2.5 meters annually, the soils are often saturated with water, and in low-lying areas with poor drainage the grass is sometimes underwater.

We don't know how different warm-season turfgrass species will respond to waterlogged soils, and Vivek's project will give some idea about which grasses can tolerate waterlogged soils most effectively, and may provide some idea as to what mechanism allows for that tolerance. Grasses are being grown in plastic tubs that maintain water at levels to either mimic normal soil moisture levels, waterlogged soils, or completely immersed turfgrass plants. Among the grasses being tested in these conditions are seashore paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum), zoysiagrass (Zoysia matrella), and carpetgrass (Axonopus compressus).

Vivek is measuring the chlorophyll content of the grass leaves as an index of plant health and will eventually be inspecting the roots to search for possible aerenchyma development in the grasses most tolerant to waterlogged conditions. The results of this research project will be very useful in that they will provide guidance on which grasses should be chosen for planting in areas susceptible to waterlogged soils. The upcoming CUGE International Turfgrass Seminar on 29 and 30 October may provide a chance to learn about some preliminary observations from these experiments.