Dollar Spot: A Study

Michael Stachowicz, Dedham Country & Polo Club, Dedham, MA:

"This is Dollar Spot... this is our main disease in fairways. As little as fifteen years ago we could treat for this once a month and that would be fine. It has become more difficult for that to happen now and part of that is a resistance that the fungus has developed over the years to out fungicides.

Resistance is something you might be aware of in our own health care; we are very worried about resistance to antibiotics and "super germs". It is the same thing with the fungal diseases on turf; every time we treat we kill 99% of the fungus, but that 1% turns out to be the fittest of all the fungus and survives that treatment and the next treatment until you have a substantial population that is resistant to that fungicide. This is why we try to pair up more than one fungicide and rotate what we use.

Enter the University of Massachusetts which has developed a way to survey the golf course and determine what resistant strains we have here. While this survey costs $500, the potential savings is huge if it saves us from using a product with little control. A typical fairway treatment can cost $4,000 to $8,000... so the payback is there by the time I am done spraying holes 1 through 4.

The first picture shows a leaf blade on a Petri plate right after they went through the "Isolation" process. Essentially, they put a dilute bleach solution (1.5%) in the sample tubes with the leaf blades to sterilize the outside of the leaf. This will kill off any saprophytic organisms on the outside of the leaf blade. Next, they rinse the bleach off with a 1 minute soak in sterile water and place the leaf blades on sterile filter paper. After leaf blades are dry they are placed on an acidified growing media and look just like the leaf blade in the first picture.

The second picture shows the same leaf blade 24 hours later. You can see the mycelium (the white cobweb looking material) from the fungus (Sclerotinia homoeocarpa) growing out of the leaf blade all ready! This is not the case for all samples, so they will give the others until Friday to make it to the promise land of nutrient rich agar.

Part 2 of this process will be posted next week when UMass gets down to the real work."

Visit Michael's blog at mstachowicz.wordpress.com

Five Years in the Making

Paul Chojnacky, Pasatiempo Golf Club, Santa Cruz, CA

"An original pair of bunkers rested behind the 9th green when MacKenzie designed the golf course back in the 1920's. Over the years these bunkers were filled in and the area was landscaped. Additionally, a cartpath directing players to the 10th tee eliminated the furthest left side bunker.

During the renovation of the golf course in the 2000s, these original bunkers were supposed to be put back to match the original design. There was no way to eliminate the cartpath to add a bunker and the club elected not to remove the necessary landscaping for the other bunker to be built.

In the winter of 2009 the maintenance staff took out all the overgrown landscaping below the clubhouse and converted this area to native grasses. Jim Urbina, who has been instrumental throughout the restoration process came on-site on September 12th and carved out a new bunker on the back left side of the green complex. MacKenzie's vision was to alter the depth perception from a player's approach shot from the 9th fairway."

View of the 9th Green Complex during Spring 2009 with landscaping behind MacKenzie Clubhouse.

Current view of 9th Green Complex with the addition of new bunker.

Visit Paul's blog at pasatiempogolfclubmaintenance.blogspot.com.

What a drag...

Jim Alwine, Stockton Golf & Country Club, Stockton, CA:

"Now that we are finished with greens, tees, approaches, and most green surrounds, our aerification efforts are now focused on fairways. As we have done in the past few years, we will pull cores using our Wiedenmann Terra Spike XF. We have some 10 inch tines on the machine, but we can only get a depth between 5-6 inches before the tractor bogs down.

After the cores are pulled and allowed to dry just a bit, we hit them with our new drag mat, Par Aide's Core Buster. So far, I like this one better than our usual metal drag mats. It is better, in my opinion, for a number of reasons. It is plastic and much lighter to load and unload. The individual cells are larger so plugs do not get stuck to the mat. The cells are deeper so plugs bounce up and down many times before exiting the ride. Finally, it looks like it will hold up much longer and when it does need repair, you can replace one square instead of the whole thing.

After a few passes with the drag mat, we hit the fairway with a tractor mounted blower and move on to the next one. We'd prefer to pick up all the plugs and topdress with some sand to improve drainage and fairway firmness. This year, we will skip the sanding to save on funds with hopes to get back to it in the future. The sand would be great, but pulling out the plugs is the major benefit of the practice, producing drain channels for the winter rains that are coming up in the rear view mirror. I miss summer already."

Visit Jim's blog at sgccturf.blogspot.com

"It's too dark" is no longer an excuse...

Craig DeJong, Hendersonville Country Club, Hendersonville, NC:

"A new tradition started at the Golf Course and Grounds Department. Since the days are getting shorter, we were loosing time between enough daylight to work and the first tee time of the day. The solution, work in the dark.

We were able to outfit our mowing equipment with lights and provide our employees with headlamps. There has been a bit of a learning curve, but so far it is working out great."

Visit Craig's blog at hccgcgd.blogspot.com