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Why Does Phosphite Matter?
Last year I wrote a Debbie Downer article about phosphite and how it isn't as environmentally friendly as you might think. Just because it is marketed as a fertilizer doesn't mean that it doesn't have...
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Effective Cultural Control of Poa Annua Seedheads
The greens have a white tinge each spring due to the poa annua seed head.No, I'm not talking about tearing your greens apart with verticutters to try and reduce the puffiness. Â Arguably one of the...
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5 things that I don't do anymore...... and why
I'm getting to the point where I've been around long enough that I have seen a lot of different practices come and go at my golf club. In the 10 years I have been a superintendent here at Pender...
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"He's starving his greens"
This was a quiet comment I heard at a talk I did recently about my experience with the MLSN. This is something I hear a lot and a source of some confusion that I hope to clear up.To apply this little...
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Reasons to Not Aerate in Spring
I'm going to try and talk myself out of aerating in the traditional way each spring. Won't you join me?Last year I asked "Is Core Aeration a Thing of the Past?" This year I am wondering if solid or...
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Controlling Growth Rates
I've been measuring clipping yield on my greens for the past 5 years. The reasoning for this is to get a good idea of how fast our grass is growing. After all, this is one of the most important things...
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Easiest Winter Ever for Fusarium. IPM on Steroids
We are now safely enough into Spring that I can reflect on the Winter fusarium battle. We aren't in the clear yet, though, as we have had to battle fusarium right until the end of June in some years....
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Finding the time to think
I will probably come at no surprise to you to learn that I think a lot about what I do at work. A few weeks ago Chris Tritabaugh shared a tweet with his followers (I'm one of them) that made me...
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If it didn't happen in science...
It's the theme on twitter this week and you are all probably sick of it but the discussions have inspired me and when I'm inspired I write about it. Who wants to read uninspired writing...
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Questioning Wetting Agents
Last year I changed the way I watered my greens. Instead of watering them last thing each night, I watered them first. The theory was that it would give the stressed out grass water sooner and allow...
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Do you even IPM?
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) isn't a new concept. It might actually be one of the oldest ways turf managers have dealt with certain pests, but in recent times we have been able to rely less and...
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Moss Disease Revisited
This week on twitter I saw an interesting tweet.Va. Tech's Shawn Askew at Nufarm turf conference: "We've evaluated 2 fungal organisms that attack moss on greens."pic.twitter.com/JJxvwh0fDS—...
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What shape is your grass?
Turfgrass management is a constant battle. Grass vs disease, grass vs weeds, and even grass vs grass. Sometimes it's obvious who is winning the battle but sometimes the victorious organism is less...
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No disease WTF?
I have been putting this post off for a while now. It seems that whenever I post about my success with disease management on my course I immediately get bit in the ass. Karma or something..Who cares...
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Why Use Growth Potential to Schedule Fertilizer Applications?
This is a very similar post to one I did 4 years ago but instead of theorizing about the benefits of Growth Potential I am speaking with some experience.The growth potential fertilizer model isn't...
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Diseasey as hell out here. Summer Disease update.
"Summertime and the livin' is easy"We are now half-way through the summer and have still not required a broadcast traditional fungicide application on greens. To say it has been easy would be a lie. It...
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EIQ is flawed so stop using it
And this is where everyone laughs at me."No one uses EIQ you dummy," is what you're probably thinking.Well yeah, the too good to be true way to quantify pesticide toxicity is just that, too good to be...
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Disease Update, You win some you lose some (mostly winning)
On the West Coast of Canada we are now well into the time of year where fusarium is the dominant disease on turf. Reflecting on the summer of 2016 I can't help but feel somewhat defeated by turf...
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1 fungicide app per year. Is there more to wood ash than we think?
It's no secret that I try pretty hard to reduce the amount of pesticide required on my golf course. I've tried a lot of things and over the years have refined my IPM strategy to only do what makes a...
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Visualizing how the MLSN guidelines changed the way I fertilize my golf course
In my last disease update I looked in depth at my nitrogen use on a month by month basis to analyze what I was doing to see if it was the cause of my disease issues. During this process I decided to...
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