Hawaii has beautiful golf courses and a lot of seashore paspalum turf; this is a seashore paspalum green at the stunning Challenge at Manele course on Lanai. I was at Hawaii last month and saw two interesting uses of sodium chloride for weed control in seashore paspalum. Because of seashore paspalum's relatively high salinity tolerance, salt can be applied to damage weeds without harming the seashore paspalum. The exact rates of salt to use and the effectiveness of the weed control are not certain, but we have been involved with some research projects with salt and will continue this work.

This is an interesting use of salt, at the Cavendish Golf Course in Lanai City. The greens are seashore paspalum and the fairways and green surrounds are a mixture of grass species. The salt is used to keep the surounding grasses from growing into the greens, essentially this is chemical edging. The salt is toxic to the plants growing outside the green, and the greens can be kept as pure seashore paspalum by occasional banding of the greens with salt.

How about this seashore paspalum green on the Challenge at Manele course? Does that look like a disease? Maybe dollar spot? A type of leaf spot, maybe Curvularia? Actually, the discolored spots on the green are individual goosegrass plants. The course superintendent, Les Jeremiah, has made weekly applications of sodium chloride at a rate of about 5 grams m^-2, with the idea of gradually damaging the goosegrass but without causing any phytotoxicity to the seashore paspalum.