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TurfGrass Trends Headlines
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TurfGrass Trends is a monthly journal of practical research on technical turfgrass management topics,
including golfcourse design and maintenance, turfgrass cultivars, turfgrass diseases and turfgrass pests, as well
as best-management practices for professional turfgrass managers. Authors include top university researchers in the
science of turfgrass management.
09/01/2009
Drubbing Grubs, Naturally
The Japanese beetle, Popillia japonica, was first detected in Riverton, N.J., in 1916. It's believed
this insect was accidentally introduced in infested nursery stock from Japan. Since then it has expanded its range,
continuing to be a pest of ornamentals and turfgrass.
09/01/2009
Know Your Enemy
If you happen to be a historian, you're aware that carefully studying and understanding the enemy have
won many major battles. Knowing what to expect and when to expect it are the basic rules of warfare. This knowledge
helps overcome vast numbers and superior weapons.
08/01/2009
Golfdom Media Planner 2009
Golfdom Media Planner 2009
08/01/2009
Crowding Out Poa
Golf course superintendents are all too familiar with Poa annua and the increased management inputs
associated with managing Poa annua compared to creeping bentgrass. Therefore, interseeding creeping bentgrass into
Poa annua is a goal superintendents have tried to achieve for years, often ending in frustration.
08/01/2009
The Great Rake Debate
In or out? That has been the basic question ever since bunker rakes came into popularity about 70
years ago. However, there is the partially-in and partially-out option. My term for this is the "propped
position." It's amazing I can write an entire article about bunker positioning, but it's an important
topic. So, let's get to all you want to know about bunker rakes and some basic physics.
07/01/2009
Golf Ball-Mark Recovery Affected by Surface Firmness and Repair Tool
Unrepaired golf ball marks can leave localized necrotic scars, raised turf prone to mower scalping,
loss of surface smoothness and the potential for weed (Poa annua) encroachment (Beard, 2002).
07/01/2009
Achieving Solid Soil Structure Is Keystone to Healthy Soils
Walking around on a perfectly manicured golf course, it's easy to forget most of the plant is below
ground. It almost goes without saying that proper soil management is vital in turf management.
06/01/2009
Water-Saving Turf
Turfgrasses provide many benefits to the environment including carbon dioxide sequestering, reduction
of wind and water erosion, and cooling of the environment. In spite of these documented benefits, there is
increasing pressure to reduce the use of grasses — primarily to reduce the water requirements of
urban areas. In many settings, turfgrass is watered much more than is required to maintain turf quality, often
because of older irrigation systems or failure to understand how to water the grass. However, there are choices
that can be made in species and cultivars to reduce water usage.
06/01/2009
Improving Foliar Fertilization of Turf
What are the merits of foliar fertilization in turf-management programs? Foliar fertilization, not to
be confused with liquid applications or fertigation, has been proposed as an efficient and environmentally safe
method of supplying nutrient elements to turf, especially intensively managed turf (Middleton, 2001; Liu et al,
2008; Totten et al., 2008). Foliar fertilization specifically targets turfgrass leaves as the site for nutrient
application and absorption, while other liquid methods deliver substantial nutrient to the thatch and soil
ultimately available for root absorption.
05/01/2009
Know Your Carbon Footprint
In these difficult times, many golf courses are "going green" to attract new golfers
and, in doing so, are reducing their operating costs. This new philosophy pays off: "Going green"
makes good cents.
05/01/2009
The Making of Machrihanish Dunes
Just inside dunes in this speck of a town on the Mull of Kintyre in southwestern Scotland, a golf
course has come to life. To say it was "built" is somewhat misleading. It's more as if Machrihanish
Dunes Golf Club was unfurled or, perhaps, revealed.
04/01/2009
Turf to a Degree
The survival of cool-season and warm-season varieties may be related to vapor pressure deficit
sensitivity at elevated temperatures
04/01/2009
Proteomics: An emerging Technique for Studying Mechanisms of Turfgrass Stress Tolerance
Our limited knowledge of stress-associated protein metabolism in turfgrass plants remains a major gap
in our understanding.
03/01/2009
Soil Geospatial Database Enhances Soil Mapping
The National Soil Geospatial Database (NSGD) will enable the National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS)
to deliver consistent, reliable soil information to golf course superintendents and others in a timely manner for a
desired area of interest, overcoming the former county-to-county disparities.
03/01/2009
Study Examines Iron Deficiency in Kentucky Bluegrass
Based on previous work with other species, we expected susceptibility to Fe-deficiency chlorosis in
KBG to be related to a cultivar's inability to produce adequate phytosiderophore.
02/01/2009
Problems Surface with Effluent Use on Turf in the Southeast
Population increases in the southeastern United States are creating new challenges for turfgrass
managers. An important one is the expanded use of sewage effluent as a water source.
02/01/2009
Understanding Microbes Helps Explain Nutrient Cycling
As urban areas continue to expand into the rural landscape, agricultural land is converted to
turfgrass cover in the form of golf courses, parks, athletic fields and lawns. With urbanization expected to
increase 79 percent in the United States over the next 25 years (Alig et al, 2004), turfgrass ecosystems inherit an
even more prominent role in urban nutrient cycling, water management and carbon interactions.
12/01/2008
California Bulrush Improves Wetland Water Quality
As the social demand for a cleaner and better environment grows, more ecological engineering that
incorporates phytoremediating plants will be integrated in the architecture and design of better quality human
settlements and other social and sport facilities. Blended into the designed landscape, these plants will add
æsthetic values of the design while providing a natural way to remove various
pollutants and waste.
12/01/2008
Nitrogen Affects the Summer Density of Creeping Bentgrass
Creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera var. palustris Huds. Farw.) is the preferred turfgrass
species for golf greens (Beard, 2002). Creeping bentgrass is a cool-season grass that forms an extremely dense,
fine-textured, persistent turf that tolerates close (less than 0.125 inches), frequent mowing. During summer
months, however, shoot density (SD) often declines, resulting in poor stand quality. Various cultural practices,
such as mowing height, fertilization regime, topdressing and vertical mowing, can have an influence on SD. Golf
course superintendents utilize several management practices to maintain turf vigor during the summer. One practice
is light, frequent, nitrogen (N) fertilization. However, annual N rates vary widely.
11/01/2008
Cultural Management Can Limit Damage From Disease
Turfgrass diseases can create many headaches for golf course superintendents, and it is tempting to
rely on magic bullets to cure them. However, cultural practices are really the foundation of a turfgrass disease
control program.
11/01/2008
Colonial Bentgrass Can Lower Fairway Inputs
By Stacy A. Bonos
10/01/2008
Are Etiolated Tillers A Visual Nuisance or Something Else?
Have you ever noticed the distinct, visual appearance of elongated or etiolated turfgrass leaf blades
on tees, fairways or greens? In areas where the turfgrass surface is perfectly even and manicured, you might have
noticed an occasional leaf blade stretching upward an inch or more above the neatly mowed canopy. The typical
etiolated leaf blade has an abnormal appearance of a yellow or light-green color. Incidentally, the term etiolated
is derived from the French etioler, which means to grow pale and weak (Salisbury). By definition, etiolation is the
growth of shoots in the absence of light or in very low light, which causes stems and leaves to become elongated
and also yellow due to the lack of chlorophyll (McMahon).
10/01/2008
European Turfgrass Society Holds First Conference
As the European Union has been evolving and growing in recent years, many European turfgrass
scientists in academia and industry, as well as turfgrass practitioners, have formed a network of connections to
diffuse and share turfgrass information throughout Europe. As a result, the European Turfgrass Society (ETS) formed
on July 6, 2007, as many European turfgrass-related scientists and industry representatives gathered to officially
ratify the organization in Pisa, Italy.
09/01/2008
Timely Fungicide Applications, Salinity Reduction Help Control Rapid Blight
Rapid blight is a relatively new turfgrass disease (Stowell et al., 2005). It was first described in
1995 when microscopic football-shaped structures were routinely observed within leaf cells in symptomatic
cool-season turfgrasses, but their identity and relevance to disease remained a mystery for several
years.
09/01/2008
Fryer Fat as Fuel
Part 1 of this series published in August explained how to produce biodiesel from vegetable oil at
your golf facility. But some people aren't big fans of handling all the necessary chemicals necessary to induce the
transesterfication process, which converts the raw vegetable oil into a usable diesel fuel by lowering its
viscosity through replacing the glycerol bond with an alcohol bond. Don't worry if you fall among this group, there
is another option: straight and waste vegetable oil. Using straight vegetable oil in your diesel equipment poses no
more risk to the machinery than regular biodiesel and is actually more environmentally responsible and cost
effective.
08/01/2008
Biofuels Help Power Kentucky Operation
When I started using vegetable oil to make biodiesel three years ago, it was mainly due to my staunch
environmental principles that I've applied to my career in golf course management. I feel biofuels are the best
option, environmentally, for fueling my diesel equipment. The economics of using vegetable oil to make biodiesel
was never my primary motive for developing and implementing my alternative fuel program. But three years later,
while experiencing the highest diesel fuel prices on record, these alternative fuels are helping me keep my
maintenance budget in line.
08/01/2008
Improved Zoysia Cultivar Could Have Use in Transition Zone
The northern border of the turfgrass transition zone in the United States is roughly Interstate 70
from Maryland through eastern Kansas. The southern boundary is roughly the southern borders of North Carolina,
Kentucky and Tennessee (Dunn and Diesburg, 2004). Whether or not a particular warm-season turfgrass species or
cultivar will perform well in the transition zone is usually determined by its ability to persist through the
coldest of winters. Bermudagrass [Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.], buffalograss [Buchloe dactyloides (Nutt.) Engelm.]
and zoysiagrass (Zoysia spp.) are used throughout the transition zone and heralded for their heat and drought
tolerance. Buffalograss is the most tolerant to cold among the three species with LT50s (the temperature that is
lethal to 50 percent of the population) ranging from -14.0 to -21.7 degrees Celsius (Qian et al., 2001), followed
by zoysiagrass (-8.4 to -11.5 C) (Patton and Reicher, 2007), and bermudagrass (-7.0 to -11.0 C) (Anderson et al.,
1988, 1993).
07/01/2008
Secrets to Controlling Hunting Billbug Reside in Warm-Season Turfgrasses
Billbugs are well known insect pests of turf in many parts of the world. Historically, this has been
true in the United States in areas where cool-season turfgrass, such as bluegrass, is grown. In these regions,
research on the bluegrass billbug, Sphenophorus parvulus Gyllenhal, has been quite thorough, and its biology and
ecology is well understood. The billbugs have one generation per year, overwinter as adults, and the
larvæ are the damaging stage of the life cycle. Other species found in the Northeast
to a lesser degree include S. inæqualis (Say), S. minimus Hart, S. coesifrons
Gyllenhal, S. venatus vestitus (Say).
07/01/2008
Gene Flow Study in Genetically Altered Crops Helps Progress Transgenic Turfgrass
Genetic improvement of plants through the introduction of a variety of traits — such as
tolerance to insects, disease, chemicals, drought or fewer nutrients — is common in agriculture
throughout the world. Traditional approaches, such as classical breeding, induced mutagenesis or wide crossing,
have a long track record of success. Transgenic technologies, in which genes conferring useful traits of interest
are transferred between different species, have been used for genetic improvement for little more than a
decade.
06/01/2008
Recycled Wastewater Instigates Different Responses in Turfgrass, Trees and Soils
As the population of Colorado's Front Range continues to grow, increased use of recycled wastewater
(RWW, or effluent water, is viewed as one of the approaches to maximize the existing water resource and stretch
Colorado's urban water supplies. While Colorado is famed for its mountains covered with snow, that does not
necessarily translate into unlimited use of fresh water for golf course or landscape use.
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