Fertility and Disease Management 101

For awhile now I've wanted to write a post about our fertility program and chemical usage at Glen Riddle.  Quite often you see me or the other assistant Steven dressed in a white space suit with rubber gloves and boots, riding around on a giant orange sprayer, spraying electric green who knows what on the turf.

I know people are at least curious about what we are up to, and even uneasy at times. We get many long looks from players as well as the occasional question: "What are you spraying?"  I hope that I can provide some understanding of these key practices we use to provide adequate nutrition to our turf and keep disease damage to a minimum.

First fertility:

Our fertility programs are based on our desire to provide adequate nutrition to the turf.  We have different plans and use different products for different course areas.  Namely greens, tees/fairways/approaches, and rough.  I specifically want to talk about the liquid fertilizer applications we make to greens.  Our greens management practices differ somewhat from the other named areas.  Our goal with greens is to provide a slow, steady source of food to the plant, aka "spoon feeding".  We want the grass on greens to grow at an even, steady pace, avoiding any major spikes or flushes in growth. Oddly, lush growth isn't good for greens.  Consistency of growth = consistent greens!

Since our greens are grown in nearly sterile sand, we must provide everything the plant needs through liquid nutrition.  More on that later.

Second disease management:

I've come to learn that the Mid-Atlantic climate can be incredibly challenging to grow healthy, disease-free turf in.  The summer heat and humidity combine to provide perfect conditions for turf damaging disease.  While the best defense of disease is to have healthy, dry turf, this isn't always possible or under our control in this climate.  At Glen Riddle we are on a disease prevention program.  We do not wait to see symptoms of disease in turf before applying chemicals.  Rather we responsibly apply chemicals in regular intervals to avoid any major outbreaks that the stressful weather can cause.  Consider this disease triangle:

In a typical Mid-Atlantic summer the environment is nearly always conductive and the host sometimes susceptible.  Our spraying usually prevents the pathogen from entering the picture.

This is new to me.  In Idaho, where I grew up and began working in the industry, I can't remember any sort of disease outbreak.  Dry climates with cool nights mean most courses use chemicals on an "as needed" basis.  My how things have changed for me!

On to spraying:

We have plans in place to spray our greens every two weeks.  At this interval we can ensure the plants have adequate nutrition and defenses according to the recommendations of the fertilizer and fungicide products we use.  We have two types of greens sprays: Foliar and Soil.  Foliar sprays are designed to be directly absorbed into the plant, while soil sprays serve to provide fertility as well as moisture consistency to the sand beneath.  Soil sprays only go out once per month.

The spray hawk is our application tool of choice

 What's in a Spray?

Almost any foliar or soil spray will have the following components:

• Liquid fertilizers and bio-stimulants
• Fungicide
• Plant growth regulator
• Tracking dye

At Glen Riddle we use Floratine liquid fertilizer products.  We usually combine 4 to 6 of their products to cover the spectrum of turf nutritional needs.  One or two types of fungicide are added.  We plan our applications based on what disease is most likely to occur during the given weather.  Plant growth regulators do just as the name implies.  The growth on the green is "stunted" so that growth doesn't exceed our capabilities to maintain the grass.  Finally we use green dye to make sure our applications don't overlap.

A note on use of fungicides:

Ideally we want to use as little chemical product as possible on the turf.  Applications are often expensive, and as I stated earlier, some folks prefer not to be exposed to it.  But for us to meet the expectations of our paying guests and members, we need to chemically suppress diseases and keep our greens pristine.  I don't feel bad for pulling out all the stops to protect our moneymakers.

That said this is my take home message: We do everything we can to use fungicides and other chemistry in the most safe and responsible manner possible.  We take our role as environmental stewards seriously and would never risk damage to the environment around us by misuse of chemicals.  Rest assured that superintendents go through rigorous education about pest management from schooling or outside study.  We are required to be licensed applicators in the states we work in, which involves more study and testing in our respective state.  We always follow the manufacturer guidelines and state regulations when we apply and dispose of chemicals.       

I hope this has been somewhat educational.  This post may be edited in the near future.  Thanks for reading!