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From the TurfNet NewsDesk

  • John Reitman
    Mike Harrell, Ph.D., had some pretty lofty career goals during his college years. 
      In those days, while attending the University of Florida, Harrell wanted to be a superintendent, then it was a golf course architect. It wasn't long before he realized he was not cut out for either.   "It was during an internship at a high-level golf course when I realized I wanted to go in another direction," he said. "I considered getting my master's degree in landscape architecture to design golf courses.   "I was going to go out and compete with the likes of Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer trying to design golf courses, so . . . what was the job market really going to be?"   When he puts it like that, the prospects don't sound so appealing.     It was by pure luck that another door opened for Harrell, one that has led to the start up of a private, independent research and testing farm in central Kentucky that has drawn the interest of turfgrass managers throughout the state who attend his annual field day as well as seed and chemical companies around the country who give him product to test in his research trials.   Started in 2005, the Southeastern Turfgrass Research Center is a 20-acre farm in Lexington where Harrell performs contract work for more than a dozen clients from various sections of the golf turf industry. Since then, he has evaluated more than 10,000 plots testing turf cultivars, fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, plant growth regulators, fertilizers and biological products.   "The reason I use Mike is because that is an important part of the country for us," said Kyle Miller, senior technical specialist with BASF.   "We've been using Mike for almost 10 years now. We were one of the early ones. He started out doing a lot of seed work. That's how he started. We came in right after that."   A native of the Lexington area, Harrell attended the University of Florida, where he also earned a master's in turfgrass management when a fellow student who had been tapped for a post-graduate slot decided to enter the workforce instead.   "He was an older student and he had a family to support," Harrell said.   "That left a research assistant's position open, so I talked to Grady Miller about it. The deal was I'd go to school for two years and get my master's, and they would pay my tuition and give a stipend to live on. I thought it was an interesting opportunity that would give me additional experience if I wanted to pursue architecture later."   After serving as a graduate research assistant under Miller, now at North Carolina State, and earning his post-graduate degree, Harrell returned to Lexington to earn his doctorate under David Williams, Ph.D., at the University of Kentucky.   "That was home for me," he said. "And Dr. Williams was open to working on various golf-related projects."   After completing his Ph.D. work in 2005, Harrell learned that establishing a name and reputation as a researcher and consultant and earning the trust of industry vendors is a long, slow process, but he remained undaunted.    He bought a 10-acre tract on Lexington's east side in 2006 when money was falling off trees.    "How did I buy a farm then? Then, anyone could buy anything," he said. "A dog could get a 30-year mortgage."   He set about establishing his farm, which formerly was a tobacco farm, and reached out to Barenbrug for seed, convincing someone there that having their products associated with his soon-to-come herbicide trials would be of value. John Deere worked with him to supply irrigation heads and controllers back in the day when the company was still in that market.   A closed environment like a privately owned farm offers clients much more control over the trials in which their products are tested, Harrell said.   "Barenbrug agreed, and donated a bunch of seed to get the place started," he said.   "I've done enough work on sod farms and golf courses, and no matter how well you know someone there, as soon as you go out the gate, someone sprays something over your trial, or something happens to it," Harrell said. "I've had trials turned into construction sites. Things just happen when you're not in control of the site. I also wanted to demonstrate my commitment to this research to my clients. I wanted them to know this wasn't something I was doing between jobs. I wanted this to be a career.   "So much that goes into what we do, you need to be around it every day. If you are doing a disease trial, you need to know what is going on with water. You need to know what is going on with fertility. All of this is important if you're going to do a good job."  
    I was going to go out and compete with the likes of Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer trying to design golf courses, so . . . what was the job market really going to be?"
     
    Acceptance from other companies, including basic manufacturers, seed companies, and distributors was slow but steady over the next several years.   He gained a reputation by conducting quality work that his customers could trust.    "I thought there has to be value in someone working more quickly and just doing research, while being responsive to customers."   Through the years, the only things he has had to buy are pieces of equipment, including walking greensmowers, a zero-turn mower, an old Ford tractor and pickup truck he found at an auto auction for $900.   "In the early days, a push mower, leaf rake and a shovel were the only things I had," he said.    By 2009, he doubled the size of his operation when he bought the 10-acre farm next door. By then, distributors were coming to him seeking information on combining products to enhance efficacy. That's another reason why BASF and so many other companies turn to him for information on their products.   "One of the things about a private cooperator, when we test new compounds before they go to market, a lot of times we need a secrecy agreement," BASF's Miller said. "If I go to a private company, it's a lot easier for him to scroll his name on the agreement, then he's the one who is responsible. When I go to a university and do something like that, golly you know how many people have to look at that and the lawyers? It takes forever."   This spring marked the third field day for golf course superintendents at Harrell's place. The event is consistently growing, and this year drew about 60 attendees. The event included product demonstrations from basic manufacturers of golf course chemicals, seed companies, equipment dealers, and distributors.   Harrell has a true affection for golf, and that comes out in his work and at his field day demonstrations.   "When I have my field day, I want my greens to be something superintendents see and are envious of, and it takes a lot of effort to do that," Harrell said. "It's an all day, everyday kind of thing.   "My yard at home doesn't look very good, but that's not my passion. I'd rather be out here. That's my passion."  
  • First it was hot and humid, but dry to the point of no rain. Then, rain that came down in buckets across much of the eastern half of the country has provided a snapshot of turf that was lush and green, followed by dormant and brown and finally green and on the road to recovery.   An up and down summer with stretches of drought alternating with buckets of rain likely has resulted in crabgrass intrusion  in cool-season turf, says Kevin Frank, Ph.D., at Michigan State University.    While cool-season turfgrasses have optimum growing temperatures of about 65-75 degrees Fahrenheit, crabgrass is a summer annual that will thrive in temperatures of 80-100 F. Crabgrass can emerge in dormant areas where irrigation has been applied to avoid crown dehydration and turf death.   There are two main options for post-emergent crabgrass control in cool-season turf: quinclorac or fenoxaprop-ethyl. Both are effective for post-emergent control of crabgrass. However, there are also some key differences between these products:   > Quinclorac can boost broadleaf activity when tank-mixed with other broadleaf-specific herbicides, especially phenoxies like 2,4-D and MCPP. > Quinclorac can provide excellent control of some broadleaf weeds, like white clover and dandelion, on its own. > Quinclorac can miss excellent post-emergent crabgrass control when crabgrass is at the two-to-three tiller stage.   When crabgrass is small or when it is gorilla-sized, quinclorac will provide control and is safe to apply to seedlings.   > Fenoxaprop-ethyl is equally effective for post-emergent crabgrass control, though it differs from quinclorac: > Fenoxaprop-ethyl can be applied at any crabgrass growth stage and provide control. > Fenoxaprop-ethyl can provide better goosegrass control than quinclorac. > Fenoxaprop-ethyl wont provide any broadleaf weed control on its own and should not be tank-mixed with phenoxy herbicides.   There are other herbicides that can provide good post-emergent control of crabgrass, such as mesotrione and topramezone. Each can be applied on the same day of seeding Kentucky bluegrass for crabgrass control during establishment, but read the label about applications on other cool-season turf species. Also, both can provide good control of some broadleaf weeds as well. There are many tank-mix options available and warranted depending on the mix of weeds that may be present in different areas.   If those dormant areas dont green up again after the rains, it might be because of insect damage, caused namely by the larvae of sod webworms or billbugs. If either is the culprit, Frank says it is too late to do anything this year, but treatment next summer might be necessary.   Like some other researchers, Frank says it might be a big year for white grubs, in particular European chafer grubs, which prefer dry turf in which to lay their eggs. Larvae will be evident by Labor Day. He suggests trichlorfon or carbaryl, both of which break down rapidly in high-pH soils, so testing and multiple applications might be necessary.
  • Presenting a unified front is easier said than done for the disparate parts that together comprise the University of Florida turfgrass management program (@UFTurfTeam). A slew of challenges confront the program, not the least of which are of a geographic nature.
      "Our turf faculty is spread across four geographic locations and eight academic departments," said Bryan Unruh, Ph.D., professor of environmental horticulture and associate center director for the university's West Florida Research and Education Center.   Located in the Panhandle city of Jay, the research center is 340 miles west of the main campus in Gainesville and the nearby turf research center in Citra, and is 640 miles from the Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center in South Florida.   "I don't know of another research facility in a subtropical climate," said Travis Shaddox, Ph.D., assistant professor of turfgrass management who is based in the Fort Lauderdale facility. "The turf never stops growing. It slows down in December and January, but it never stops growing, so weed challenges are different and disease challenges are different."   Historically, Florida's width and breadth alone - it is 830 miles from Pensacola to Key West - has made servicing the needs of various stakeholders around the state a monumental challenge. Throw in the climatological differences from one end to the other as well as the sheer number of people needing help - there are 75,000 fertilizer applicators in Florida - one might think it would require a small army to be everywhere at once. Instead, all it has taken is a little planning and a refocused team effort.   "Other places have their challenges as well. Part of ours is that we have a lot of distance between research centers, a lot of environmental changes and a tremendous amount of clientele. The population is going up all the time," Shaddox said. "Then you have to consider how much turfgrass there is in Florida. There is a tremendous amount of golf courses, sod farms and lawn care operators. It's always a challenge.   "We are all in our own little world, but we have to take a step back realize this is Florida, not just Fort Lauderdale, or Jay or Citra. We have to address all of the needs of people all around the state."   Unruh agreed.   "We are trying to move forward with a unified message about turf in Florida, rather than turfgrass in South Florida or turfgrass in North Florida," Unruh said. "We're the same institution, and we're trying to be more understanding that there is greater value in an all-encompassing message even though there are environmental differences between locations. People in North Florida and South Florida manage turf differently, but the University of Florida is the whole state."   Faculty are spread across four facilities - the main campus in Gainesville, Fort Lauderdale, the Milton campus near Jay and another facility in Belle Glade. In all, the university has 13 research stations across the state, many of which are agricultural research posts. In the past, the turf program had difficulty covering Florida's 65,755 square miles, largely because it's just so darned far from one end of the state to the other. In those early days some 20 years ago, Unruh met with some of Florida's golf course superintendents to learn what the university could do to improve its relationship with those who needed its help.   "The perception was that the university had been acting in a vacuum," said Darren Davis, CGCS of Olde Florida Golf Club in Naples, who was among that group with whom Unruh met. "Bryan has increased the communication between the university and the golf course superintendents in the state, enabling himself to be more of a conduit between the university and superintendents."   Although much of the UF effort centers around traditional education and extension services, the turf team is looking for other ways to help educate those in the turf industry. For example, an upcoming turf school short course entitled the Evidence-Based Turf Management Short Course at the Fort Lauderdale facility. The event will focus on fertility and water needs and is designed to appeal to professional turf managers as well as homeowners and everyone in between.   "We have to make sure we dont slant education to be just for superintendents," Unruh said. "We have to make sure that the cookies are at a level where everyone can eat them."   Getting the entire turf team on the same page has been an ongoing process since the mid 1990s, which, coincidentally, is when Unruh came on board. With some researchers retiring and new ones taking their place, the time had come this spring, he said, for everyone to convene again.   To that end, Unruh, who has been at UF since 1996, hosted the entire turf team in April to reaffirm that focus and introduce its recent hires in Shaddox and entomologist Adam Dale, Ph.D.   "The team really came together, and we're thinking much more strategically now," Unruh said. "How do we better serve the state?   "We knew what we did was so discombobulated. The people around the state know Bryan Unruh, but the turf team as a whole is not known around the state as a center of influence."   Part of presenting that united front also means supporting the efforts of colleagues for all-important research funding. Unruh recently attended a Florida GCSA meeting to stump for research funding. But he didn't just ask for funding for his own projects, he also spoke on behalf of three other projects that were not his.   "Adam Dale is the new guy. He's the rookie," Unruh said. "We need to prioritize his funding needs of the old guys because he has to get tenured promotion, and I think it is incumbent on the old guys to make sure that happens."   For the record, Unruh considers himself one of those "old" guys. His appointment is 70 percent extension, and he has the frequent flyer miles to prove it. However, given the challenges of getting around Florida and the unique needs of turf managers throughout the state, it is not uncommon for Shaddox or Jason Kruse, Ph.D., who is at the main campus in Gainesville, to pull some outreach duty as well.   "Through May, I was gone every week of the year except two. I used to add up (travel), but it got depressing, so I stopped doing it," Unruh joked.   His efforts and those of his colleagues to better serve the needs of superintendents, sports turf managers, lawn care operators and private residents around the state are no laughing matter.   "Bryan, since he's come in, has gone to bat for us," Davis said. "Professors and researchers are like superintendents; some are introverts. Bryan has helped connect the two groups by being visible and communicating the needs of all of the university, not just himself. He has become a face for the university."    
  • It says right in the second paragraph of the U.S. Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal," but you don't have to listen to Ohio State professor Karl Danneberger, Ph.D., talk for even that long to know that all plant growth regulators are not.
      "When people say all plant growth regulators are the same, they are not the same," Danneberger said during a PGR update at this week's Ohio Turfgrass Foundation turf research field day.   Danneberger's talk focused primarily on the PGRs that work as gibberellic acid inhibitors: paclobutrazol, trinexapac-ethyl and flurprimidol. As different PGRs with different active ingredients and different modes of action made it to market in during different stages, it took research and a lot of trial and error to come to that conclusion. It also took the advent of one product in particular in the 1990s.   "It's interesting to see how they've been used, how they've adapted and how we stand with them now," Danneberger said.   "When Primo came out (Syngenta's) Joe DiPaola came around to market it . . . I go ' geez, Joe, just another PGR.' But it did revolutionize how we use PGRs."   Held at the OTF Turfgrass Research and Education Facility at Ohio State University, the field day included tours on topics such as wetting agent performance, sprayer calibration, summer weed identification and control, annual bluegrass weevil update as well as updates on fungicide programs for disease control.   Between Danneberger and his recently retired colleague John Street, Ph.D., an awful lot of PGR research has been conducted at Ohio State, including early work on why trinexapac-ethyl is more effective in cooler conditions than it is during the middle of summer and why paclobutrazol is such a good tool to use during fairway conversion projects.   Because trinexapac-ethyl is foliar absorbed, the half life is severely affected by severe summer conditions.   "It just disappears," Danneberger said. "Whether it's metabolized quickly, or just broken down, it's gone."   A rule of thumb, says Danneberger, is to use trinexapac-ethyl if managing for Poa and paclobutrazol, which has a systemic mode of action, if managing for creeping bentgrass.   Danneberger said he suggests maintaining a seven-day program for Poa greens.   But what about places with a mix of bent and Poa?   The generally accepted program, he said, was to use trinexapac-ethyl in spring for seedhead control and switch to paclobutrazol in summer at 2 to 4 ounces, with increased rates of 8 to 16 ounces heading into fall.   "I had friends at the USGA who swore by that, except every course I went to, I didn't see that," Danneberger said. "I tried it, and I didn't get that, so I've been playing around with that this year and said 'forget it,' and look at those 32- and 64-ounce rates and bring back memories and relive my younger days."   As with any program that controls Poa, it's best to know how much you really have, especially when dropping a systemic PGR with two weeks of residual activity like paclobutrazol.   "That turns Poa yellow, and when it gets really hot, it kind of dies," he said. "So, keep that 14-day soil-absorption rule in mind, because you're going to be coming in and seeding."   Annual bluegrass weevil update
      Like plant growth regulators, all species of annual bluegrass weevil are not created equally. ABW slowly is making inroads into Ohio's northern tier, but it's a different animal, literally, than what superintendents are battling in the country's northeastern corridor.   In many parts of the Northeast, annual bluegrass weevil species have developed resistance to one of the superintendent's favorite tools - bifenthrin, a pyrethroid class insecticide.   "There are records of superintendents applying bifenthrin eight to 10 times in a single season," Shetlar said.   "When you hit an insect repeatedly with the same insecticide and have multiple generations per year, you're going to develop resistance."   The ABW species found in northeastern Ohio still are quite susceptible to pyrethroids, something Shetlar learned when he first visited a Cleveland-area golf course a few years ago.   "I was shocked the first time we ran into it," he said. "We came with all these studies of everything we could think of, and Talstar kicked butt."   Still, the absence of resistance to pyrethroids makes ABW management in Ohio much easier than say in New Jersey or New York.   "But a word of caution," he said. "Even though weevils in Ohio are not resistant to bifenthrin, you have to have a program that alternates another chemistry with bifenthrin so they don't develop resistance."   Among the products Shetlar recommends for Ohio turf managers are pyrethroids such as deltamethrin and Lambda- cyhalothrin.    A pyrethroid coupled with chlothianidin applied two times over a three-week window in the spring is an effective combination in the fight against ABW in Ohio.   "We do a soap flush in the spring in mid- to late April. When we detect adults migrating out of the turf, we make the first application, and mark that on the calendar," Shetlar said. "We make the second application three weeks later then we're done for the season. That's it. What we find, since adults are not resistant to bifenthrin, it takes out any adults that are out there, and the chlothianidin component of that is systemic. I know it's a neonicotinoid, but it works well at taking out the larvae."   Some have asked Shetlar if he thought two applications was overkill, no pun intended.   "The thought has been that movement may occur over a two-week period. The more we study it, the adult migration might occur over a six-week period. By making the first application we take out the first migrants and the first larvae. By making the second application three weeks later, it takes out the rest of the migrants that have moved in, and if they've survived, we take them out for another three weeks. This way, we cover that six-week window where these critters can come into the turfgrass."  
  • The year was 1921.
      Warren Harding was inaugurated as the 29th president of the United States; Mao Tse Tung formed the communist party in China; Coco Chanel introduced her signature fragrance - No. 5; Albert Einstein won the the Nobel Prize for physics; and Marion Harris topped the charts with her rendition of Spencer Williams' "I Ain't Got Nobody", a tune later popularized by The Village People in 1978 and David Lee Roth (of Van Halen fame) in 1985.   It also was the year that Oscar Jacobsen started a namesake company in Racine, Wisconsin, releasing a mower capable of cutting 4 acres of grass in a single day, an unheard of feat at the time.   This year, the same company that started in 1921 and has grown into a multinational operation as a division of Textron, is celebrating 95 years of business.   In that span, Jacobsen has recorded a number of industry firsts.   to watch a history of Jacobsen.   Click here for a company timeline.   The aptly named Four Acre mower released in 1921 was built to professional specifications and was designed for use on golf courses, parks and cemeteries. The price tag reflected its quality, drawing $275, no small piece of change in those days.   Four years after releasing its first mower, Jacobsen revolutionized the golf business forever when the company brought to market what it says was the first professional greensmower  (PGM) built from aluminum.   Production transitioned to supporting the war effort during the first half of the 1940s. Jacobsen built not mowers for golf courses and parks, but equipment for the U.S. military, including what the company called backpack generators for use on the front.   By war's end, the company acquired the Worthington Mower Co. in Pennsylvania, which specialized in large-area mowers for parks and golf courses.   The acquisition fit in perfectly, and as the company continued to grow after World War II, Jacobsen entered the consumer market, buying the Johnston Lawn Mower Co. in Iowa, and in 1955 released its first consumer-grade rotary mower.   The company stepped up its game in the 1960s, particularly in golf, introducing the first riding greensmower, the Greens King, in 1968. That also was the same year the company went public. A year later, growth continued and Jacobsen was acquired by Allegheny Ludlum, which subsequently sold the company to Textron in 1978.   As golf courses changed and so to did the ways in which they were managed, so too did Jacobsen. By 1971, the company offered the F-20 wide-area mower. The largest golf course mower of its day, the F-20 was a nine-gang, tractor-pulled unit with a cutting width of 19 feet capable of mowing more than 12 acres per hour.   Other firsts included the greens groomer in 1986 that allowed superintendents to increase putting green speed without lowering the height of cut; the LF 100 (1989), the industry's first lightweight fairway unit; and the Eclipse 22 (2009), the first hydraulic-free electric greensmower.   As the company knocks on the door of its centennial, the standards Oscar Jacobsen put into place nearly 100 years ago still are the pillars on which it stands.   "Since Oscar Jacobsen founded the company 95 years ago, his original vision really hasn't changed much over the years," said David Withers, president and CEO of Jacobsen. "He set out to provide equipment that helped turf managers provide superior conditions, maximize productivity and reduce costs. From his original putting greens mower to today's HR Series of wide-area rotary mowers, we've delivered on that vision for 95 years. And now it's the countdown to our centennial in 2021 when we will celebrate our 100-year anniversary."  
  • John Deere has renewed its commitment to The First Tee in an effort to bring more girls to the game of golf.
      Research shows about one of every five golfers is a woman. The First Tee boasts a little better success, with girls comprising 38 percent of its participants. It wants that number to even higher, hopefully as much as 45-50 percent, and John Deere is going to help it try to get there.    Through the next five years, the John Deere Foundation will donate more than $600,000, according to published reports, to The First Tee, which uses golf to teach core leadership and life skills to children.   Deere's support, which runs from 2017 through 2021, will focus on community service and volunteerism, leadership skills for girls and program support of The First Tee activities in select Deere communities. Deere has supported The First Tee since 2012.   "Over the next five years, this initiative will encourage and recognize young people who take an active role in preparing for their future and serve the communities where they live," said Mara Downing, president of the John Deere Foundation and director of corporate citizenship and global brand management at Deere and Co.   Deere's support also will help provide other lifelong opportunities that might not otherwise materialize.   A nationwide contest in the U.S. will demonstrate the impact of leadership skills gained through community service and volunteerism with The First Tee. Participants age 14 to 18 will be able to submit a written essay for the opportunity to win a $5,000 college scholarship plus the opportunity to be a VIP guest and pro-am participant in 2017 at the PGA Tour's John Deere Classic in Silvis, Illinois.    Essays will focus on how students represent "Power for Good" through service to their communities, the impact their work is having and how their work is connected to the values learned through The First Tee and the game of golf. The contest will launch later this year.   "Introducing themselves with confidence, shaking someone's hand and looking them in the eye and taking off their hat at the end of a round to congratulate someone at the end of a round those are skills you learn on the golf course," said First Tee vice president Jennifer Weiler.   An event for girls focused on developing leadership skills within the context of the game of golf will be held in conjunction with LPGA-USGA Girls Golf in a The First Tee community, where the winner of the national essay contest will be honored. This event will be the first-ever in which The First Tee will focus on leadership skills and golf awareness for a female-only audience.   The John Deere Foundation will also provide funding to further develop The First Tee chapters in select John Deere home communities, including the Quad Cities in Illinois and Iowa; Des Moines, Iowa; and Cary, North Carolina.    
  • At one time in his career, Matt Lean worked in a magic shop. Although today he faces almost-unheard-of challenges and limitations as superintendent at a modest nine-hole course in South Florida, Lean provides big-budget conditions without resorting to sleight of hand or pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
    In his sixth season at Monterey Yacht and Country Club in Stuart, Lean has to overcome a host of budget, labor and equipment constraints in the daily performance of his duties. He rarely gets to buy equipment, and when he does it's used, usually coming through a local distributor that acquires off-lease machinery from other clubs.   "Everything I get," he said, "usually has over 1,000 hours on it."   Lean laughs now when he recalls taking a fairway mower onto the course in one of his first days on the job in 2010.   "It was so old that the reels came off when we stopped it," Lean said. "They weren't even bolted on. We had to chain them on."   The unit was so old and so week "it couldn't even carry me up a hill," Lean said. "Then the frame cracked in half one day while I was mowing with it. I asked the club if it was insured, because I was going to drive it into the pond."   Each morning at Monterey Yacht and Country Club is like a 100-meter dash for Lean and his assistant, Joe Dovutovich, a 66-year-old retired steelworker.   Between the two of them, they mow greens, tees and fairways, perform any necessary spray applications by 11 a.m., giving them the second half of the day for detail work and other agronomic practices. Some days, they might not see each other for hours.   "We're on a pretty tight schedule," Lean said. "Joey can go out and mow tees. I can go out and spray behind him or mow fairways. We might not even see each other until 10 or 11. If something happens, if we get an irrigation blowout, we're screwed."   Lean attended turf school at Indian River State College in nearby Fort Pierce, but never finished. He is eager to share some of what he has to do to get his job done each day, but wonders whether there are enough superintendents out there scraping by with a skimpy budget who can appreciate what he goes through every day.   "I honestly don't know if anyone can relate to what we do here," he said.   Although there is a big difference between Monterey Yacht and Country Club and the many high-brow properties surrounding Stuart, MYCC members have the same level of expectations.   A non-descript layout built in 1970 on a grand total of 15 acres of managed turf, Monterey winds through a 55-and-older residential community dotted with dozens of multi-unit condo buildings. About 100 rounds per day are played there from September through March, and in the summer when members aren't playing, some watch from their screened patios each morning to make sure Lean and Dovutovich are playing shepherd over their investment.   To meet their expectations, Lean has become a master at finding ways to do more with less and he does it faster.   He works out of a maintenance facility that is smaller than a two-car garage, and he has to share that space with another department that oversees managing shrubs and other ornamentals.   He grooms greens with a brush system he concocted by attaching the heads of push brooms he bought online to the mower buckets, a system he says saved hundreds.   Instead of using a soil probe to monitor subsurface moisture, he uses a cheaper probe designed for use in the top inch of potted plants. If the probe indicates the soil just below the surface is dry, Lean can confirm or debunk the findings by pulling a quick soil sample.   "I can't afford the bigger meter," he said. "If I'm in the 5 range, I know I'm OK. If it gets below 5, I know it's getting dry. I'll then pull a soil sample and feel the sample at the end."   The club doesn't own a Stimpmeter, so there are only three levels of green speed at Monterey: "slow, fast and faster."   Lean hasn't become a master of doing things the unconventional way in an attempt to save money. The money isn't there, so he finds another way to do things so they get done, otherwise they don't get done. Period.   "I don't look at it as saving money," he said. "I'm trying to find a way to do things efficiently. I'm trying to do things the easiest way we can and get the most out of my time.   "Everything here is a budgetary issue. Inexpensive is what we're about, because we don't have the budget."   Although he doesn't have the sheepskin that other superintendents display framed on their office walls, he is convinced there aren't too many degrees of separation between him and those who produce Augusta-like conditions for TV each week.   "I don't have the pedigree like everybody else has," he said. "I don't have anything against those guys. I wish I was at some fancy-pants course. I love the way they look."   He should know. For years he has been producing the same conditions with far fewer resources.
  • Golf course superintendents who want to increase their understanding of business strategy and management have until Aug. 16 to submit applications for the eighth annual Syngenta Business Institute. 
      Scheduled for Dec. 5-8, SBI is a partnership between Syngenta and the Wake Forest University School of Business to help superintendents strengthen business and management skills.   "The Syngenta Business Institute is one of the most unique and rewarding experiences I have ever been part of," said John Cunningham, CGCS at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, who attended SBI in 2015. "Having the opportunity to attend three days of business classes focused on the many challenges we face as superintendents was unbelievable. Spending time with other superintendents was beneficial, and walking away with best management practices, tools and solutions to help some of these problems was awesome."   To be considered, applicants must complete an application that includes an essay on why they should be selected, relevant professional experience and educational background. This year's attendees will be notified in October.   "(SBI) deals with things that are outside of our wheelhouse," said 2015 attendee Jim Pavonetti, CGCS at Fairview Country Club in Greenwich, Connecticut. "Making greens great is what we do, but managing boards and owners, those are the kinds of things we can improve upon."   One of the sessions Pavonetti found most informative was a session on negotiating, led by Wake Forest's Bill Davis, Ph.D., who told attendees to always have a back up plan when trying to strike a deal.   "We're negotiating every day," Pavonetti said, "whether it's buying chemicals or fertilizers, or working with the finance committee over next year's budget, or selling projects to committees."   Click here to learn more about the Syngenta Business Institute or to apply.  
  • When Palmer Maples Jr. walks into a room, superintendents still stand up and take notice. And when those same superintendents think the 84-year-old greenkeeping legend has left the building without saying good bye, they get up again and go looking for him.
      Only when they find him hidden away in a back room of the clubhouse of an Atlanta golf course spinning tales of yesteryear to a reporter do they breathe a sigh of relief.   "Whew, I thought you were gone," says one superintendent. "It's always an honor to see you," utters another. "Take care of that family, or see that they take care of you," says yet another.   Despite his age, Maples is as spry as most men 20 years his junior, and much of his outlook on greenkeeping still translates into today's world of hard, smooth and fast surfaces. He's like that once-in-a-generation athlete who you look at, years after his prime has come and gone, and say to yourself "dang, I bet he could still play today."   Part of the Maples family out of Pinehurst that has spawned dozens of people across four generations working in the golf business, Maples began working on golf courses in the 1940s when he was 12. He spent parts of five decades as a superintendent in Georgia and North Carolina. Now living in Kansas City, Missouri, Maples recently was back in Georgia to support former pupil Mark Hoban during the latter's inaugural organic and native grasses field day at Rivermont Golf Club in Johns Creek.   They worked together in the 1970s at The Standard Club, where Maples was superintendent from 1970-76.   "He was the first one to register and pay when he heard about this," Hoban said. "I was so excited that he came back. That was pretty special."   Considered a progressive superintendent and forward thinker for his era, Maples says much has changed in the golf business since he learned agronomy at the knee of people like Glenn Burton and Marv Ferguson.   "Mostly the technology," Maples said . "It's not only the equipment, but the personnel taking care of the equipment. When I started in the business, we had a three-quarter-inch hose and a sprinkler. Now, you can turn on a whole irrigation system with a phone."   Maples started in the business as a kid in the mid-1940s, right after World War II. He recalls mowing heights on greens in those days were as high as five-sixteenths of an inch.   "Then it was one-quarter," he said. "Now, it's ridiculous how close they shave it. Pretty soon, you'll need shaving cream to mow greens."   Still, much of Maples' philosophy toward agronomy still holds true today. He was years ahead of his time in maintaining open relationships with university researchers, budgeting and economics and the value of the lessons learned from a little dead turf now and then.    "If you're not killing some grass now and then, you're not learning anything," he said. "You're not finding out what will work and what won't work, and you won't know the parameters of it."   One of the major challenges facing the golf business years ago still haunts the profession today: those who cannot recognize the difference between saving money and not wasting it. Maples said he learned that difference in the 1950s when a Wisconsin turf legend would visit Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, where Maples earned a two-year degree.   "The economics of O.J. Noer. He said the golf course is not a place to save money, it's a place not to waste money," Maples said. "If you want to save money on a golf course, then that is troublesome. But if you don't want to waste money, you take the resources you have and make the best application of those. Some areas are going to get more attention than others. You have to make that division and establish your priorities so you don't waste money."  
    The golf course is not a place to save money, it's a place not to waste money,"
     
    That is what Hoban is doing with his organic and native grasses program that helps him establish aesthetically pleasing, low-input areas throughout Rivermont so he can focus his attention and resources on greens, tees and fairways.   "Those native areas don't waste money," Maples said. "They help Mark reduce the cost of maintaining them, which in turn allows him to have more money for high-priority areas. He still has the same amount of money, but he can use more of it on fine turf."   Such drastic projects, he said, require constant communication with club administration and members, and that always was one of Maples' specialties.   "That was especially true with the pro. The pro always had to know what I was doing and why I was doing it," he said.   "I had to let members know what I anticipated doing to the course to present them with the playing conditions they wanted."   Maples had a career in turf management that spanned parts of five decades. He earned a two-year degree at Abraham Baldwin in Tifton, Georgia after being personally recruited by Dr. Glenn Burton, a geneticist at the USDA Coastal Plains Experiment Station (later co-opted by the University of Georgia). He later attended North Carolina State University and Texas A&M before his academic career was interrupted by the Korean War.    Maples career is peppered with accolades. He was the recipient of the 2000 USGA Green Section Award and was inducted into the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame in 2002. A former GCSAA president (1975), he also was president of the Carolinas GCSA, Maples also was the Georgia GCSA superintendent of the year winner in 1971.   Understand Maples pedigree, and all those awards, honors and recognition start to make sense.   Part of the Pinehurst Maples clan, he grew up playing No. 2 because his "granddaddy" worked for Donald Ross.    At Texas A&M he studied under Marv Ferguson, father of the USGA method for putting green construction. After the war, he finally settled on the University of Georgia to complete his studies because "more of my credits transferred there than to anywhere else."   During his days in the field at places like Charlotte Country Club in North Carolina and upper crust Atlanta properties that rival Tara, Maples recognized the value of research, education and sharing knowledge with others. For those reasons, clubs at which he worked always had areas that doubled as university research plots, either for North Carolina State or the University of Georgia.   "Any course I worked at, I always opened the door to trial work," he said.    Indeed.   In the late 1950s, Maples was hired as superintendent at Charlotte to oversee a bold, new project - regrassing the greens with a new warm-season turf, Tifgreen Bermudagrass, commonly known as 328.   Released in 1956 and developed at the Tifton experiment station, 328 is a cross between Cynodon dactylon (common Bermudagrass) taken in the 1940s from the No. 4 green at Charlotte CC and Cynodon transvaalensis (African Bermudagrass).   "I took the mother of 328 off the greens at Charlotte Country Club and put the baby on," he said.    Early in his career, Maples developed a formula for producing superb putting conditions on Bermudagrass, especially going into tournaments.   "One thing I would do was go to management and say these ARE the three dates that I am going to aerify greens," he said. "They can't live without oxygen just like you can't walk around and shut up your nose without breathing. The grass has to breathe.   "On Bermuda greens, I'd put down a little sand every two to three weeks. Ten days after a good verticut and topdressing is when the best leaf surface was there. So I'd back up from a tournament and do that, and we always had good greens."   His formula worked up until his retirement in 1997 from Summit Chase Country Club in Snellville, Georgia.   Before departing Rivermont, Maples left a few simple words of advice that helped him through a 38-year career as a superintendent that included five years as the GCSAA's director of education (hence the connection to Kansas City).   "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, but today is a present," he said. "Today is the present you have. Make the most of it."   More timeless advice from a timeless legend.  
  • Longtime Toro veteran Richard Olson will succeed Mike Hoffman as the company's chief executive officer later this year, the company recently announced.   Olson, who has been with Toro for 30 years, officially will assume his new role Nov. 1. He was named the company's president and chief operating officer in 2015.   Hoffman, who joined the Bloomington, Minnesota-based equipment manufacturer 39 years ago, will remain as chairman of the board of directors. He has served as CEO since 2005.   OIson joined Toro in 1986. He led Toro's Exmark division, first as general manager in 2010 then vice president a year later. In 2012 he was named vice president of the company's international business segment, and two years later added micro-irrigation and distributor development to his responsibilities.   Toro has grown exponentially under Hoffman's watch, which included acquisitions of key companies in the consumer market and expansion of the irrigation division during times of widespread drought. The result has been a near quadrupling of the company's stock value, soaring from $25.72 when he took over as CEO, to $91.98 on Monday.    
  • Hot, humid conditions late into the summer provide an environment that is a simmering cauldron for anthracnose on annual bluegrass putting surfaces. 
     
    Rutgers University's best management practices for annual bluegrass putting greens provides information on fertilization, mowing and rolling, use of plant growth regulators, irrigation, topdressing, cultivation practices and fungicide use to help golf course superintendents manage anthracnose or avoid it entirely.
      Fertilization
      Nitrogen should be applied to maintain vigor without overfertilizing. Annual "summer" soluble nitrogen rates of 2.4 to 3.6 pounds of N per 1,000 square feet should be applied to reduced anthracnose incidence and severity. A rate at the higher end of the range will be needed if nitrogen rates have been historically low.   Beginning soluble nitrogen programs in April or May at 0.4 pounds to 0.8 pounds of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet per month can build up nitrogen in the turf heading into summer, which can result in decreased anthracnose severity.    Any granular nitrogen fertilization should be emphasized in the spring at rates of 1 pound to 3 pounds per 1,000 square feet to reduce disease severity. A rate at the high end of the range will be needed if nitrogen rates have been low historically.   Potassium should be applied to maintain moderate to high levels of soil potassium. Soluble potassium applications should be made at 1:1 or 2:1 N:K molar adjusted-ration every 14 days to reduce anthracnose severity.   Mowing and rolling
      Mowing below 0.125 inches should be avoided when used fixed-head mowers - probably a slightly lower bench setting is OK for flex units. If possible, raise the cutting height as high as 0.140 inches for greater suppression of anthracnose. Slight increases in mowing height can significantly reduce the severity of this disease. Thus, use of solid rollers versus grooved rollers, at the same bench height setting, might also be helpful.   Roll and/or increase mowing frequency to maintain ball-roll distances at higher mowing heights. Rolling and double-cutting increase ball roll, but will not enhance disease severity.   Rolling every other day can result in slightly decreased anthracnose severity, regardless of roller type.   Test the rootzone annually to ensure that soil pH does not become too acidic.   If limestone is required, base the quantity to be applied on a target pH of 6.0 and the buffering capacity of the soil (lime requirement index).   Plant growth regulators
      Routine trinexapac-ethyl use even at high rates and short intervals will not increase and might reduce anthracnose severity by improving turf tolerance to low mowing and enhancing plant health.   Mefluidide and ethephon can be used to suppress seedhead formation in annual bluegrass without increasing anthracnose.   Mefluidide or ethephon applied in March or April at label rates with subsequent applications of trinexapac-ethyl at 0.1 ouches to 0.2 ounces per 1,000 square feet every seven to 14 days will provide the best turf quality and might reduce anthracnose.   Irrigation
      Increased anthracnose can result when annual bluegrass is consistently subjected to wilt stress or excessively wet conditions.   Irrigating to replace 60 percent to 80 percent of potential evapotranspiration and hand watering as needed to avoid wilt stress will provide a quality playing surface and reduce conditions favorable for anthracnose.   Topdressing
      Bi-weekly sand topdressing in the "summer" with up to 100 pounds per 1,000 square feet provides a protective layer of sand around the crown, which slightly raises the effective height of cut thus reducing anthracnose.   Topdressing in the spring at 400 pounds to 800 pounds per 1,000 square feet is more effective than fall applications in reducing anthracnose severity. These rates do not include the quantity of sand needed to fill coring holes; more sand will be needed if coring is done at the same time as topdressing. The amount of sand needed will depend on the diameter and spacing of coring holes.   Anthracnose does not appear to be affected by different sand incorporation techniques, so methods which best incorporate sand should be selected to minimize turf injury and wear on mowing equipment.   Foot traffic appears to reduce anthracnose, regardless of sand topdressing. The benefits of sand topdressing (better wear tolerance and decreased disease) are also seen in areas that receive daily foot traffic.   Cultivation
      Do not avoid the use of verti-cutting or other cultivation practices if needed when disease is present, since wounding from these practices has not been shown to increase anthracnose severity. However, make sure fungicides have recently been applied before utilizing any cultivation practice when anthracnose is active.   Fungicide management
      Avoid the sequential use of any fungicide chemistry and tank-mix or alternate fungicides with different modes of action to enhance efficacy and reduce the potential for resistant strains of the anthracnose pathogen from developing.   Develop fungicide programs that focus on the strengths (efficacy) of fungicide chemistries and time their application to optimize the control of all major diseases on the site.   Use as many different fungicide chemistries with proven efficacy against anthracnose - i.e., the QoI, DMI, Nitrile (chlorothalonil), benzimidazole, dicarboximide (iprodione), phosphonate, antibiotic (polyoxin-D), and phenylpyrrole fungicides - as practical during the growing season to enhance anthracnose control and reduce the potential for fungicide resistance.
  • The first Operation Pollinator plots in the United States were established under the eye of entomologist Dan Potter, Ph.D., at the University of Kentucky. So when it was time for the next phase of pollinator research, one that examines their relationship with certain pesticides, it was only fitting that it too takes place under Potter.
      Bernadette Mach, a doctoral candidate under Potter, has a couple of research projects under way in Lexington. She is collecting data to produce what might be the first science-based list of pollinator friendly plants, and her work on how those insects are affected by neonicotinoid-class insecticides could go a long way in determining the future of pest management in turf and ornamentals.   Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency opened a review of all neonicotinoid insecticides, meaning the entire class could be at risk. Although that group of pesticides is believed to be one of the factors contributing to bee decline, no science-based research has been conducted in that area, until Mach's work that is being conducted on stations at UK, throughout Lexington and around Kentucky.   Her work includes timings and rates applied mostly to ornamentals, but could affect how other pests are managed, including emerald ash borer and white grubs in turf, too, Potter said.   "The EPA is making decisions as we speak as to whether they are going to cancel the registrations of these products, and we are trying to get real data whether these things do or do not pose a hazard," Potter said during UK's recent field day at the A.J. Powell Turfgrass Research Center. "We think with the right safeguards and timings we can continue to use these things without having much of an impact on the bee issue.   "When we lose these things, we won't have anything left for emerald ash borer control, and we'll only have Acelepryn for grubs, so we would like to hopefully keep these tools."   According to the University of Florida, honey bee populations have been steadily decreasing in the United States since the 1940s. Several factors are at play, including harsh winter conditions, varroa mite infestations and colony collapse disorder, a phenomenon that occurs when mass numbers of worker bees inexplicably fail to return to their hives. It is believed that some pesticides, particularly neonicotinoids, have played a role in CCD.   "We are hoping to find a happy medium so we can provide an environment that is friendly to bees and also one in that we are not overrun with white grubs, Japanese beetles and emerald ash borer," Mach said.   That relationship between bees and neonicotinoids came to a head in 2013 when more than 25,000 bumblebees from an estimated 300 colonies died after an application of dinotefuran to flowering linden trees in an effort to control aphids at a shopping mall near Portland, Oregon.   So far, Mach's studies have confirmed that pollinators tend to lose their way home when exposed to low doses of neonicotinoids. The science beyond that, she said, is, right now, anyone's guess.   "Neonicotinoids have gotten a lot of heat the past couple of years because of the threat they pose to bees," Mach said. "This really concerns the public, and this is a valid question.   "There has not been a lot of research on realistic scenarios," she said. "When they are exposed to neonicotinoids in the lab, they don't navigate real well. They might die in high enough doses, but we don't what that is yet, or what they might encounter in treated areas."   Mach's work also is investigating which plants and flowers are the most friendly for bees. She wants to go beyond anecdotal evidence to provide a science-based list of bee-friendly plants.   There are more than 20,000 species of bees found around the world, about 4,000 of which can be found in the United States, according to the USDA.   "You can look on labels that say plants are bee friendly, but they're not backed by any data," she said. "It's based on someone going into their back yard and saying, 'hey, there's a bee on that plant, so it must be good for bees.' There is no quantifiable number to determine how attractive it is or what types of bees it is attracting."   So far, her work has identified more than 16,000 individual bees on nearly 100 plant species around Lexington.   Establishing areas that attract pollinating insects not only makes sense for backyard gardens, it can be a positive experience on golf courses as well, Potter said.   Another of Potter's graduate students, Emily Dobbs, helped establish the first Operation Pollinator plots in the U.S. several years ago at the UK research station an other golf courses throughout Lexington and central Kentucky.   "Why should we care about that for golf courses?" Potter asked. "It's an excellent thing or engagement, education and public relations.    "It's good for the green industry to be part of the solution, and that's what we're after."  
  • The way Mark Hoban sees it, there should be much more to the golf experience than getting the ball into the hole in the fewest shots possible. The experience also should include a field of play that is aesthetically pleasing to the eye, requires minimal inputs and looks like it is part of the surrounding landscape - all while providing a tough, fair test for golfers.
      All of that was on display recently as Hoban hosted his inaugural organic and native grasses field day at Rivermont Golf Club in Johns Creek, Georgia.   For the past decade, Hoban has been incorporating organic nutrients, biologicals and native grasses to make Rivermont stand out as a unique property in the golf-heavy Atlanta market. And there was enough interest in what he has been doing that more than 70 people registered to attend the event.   For Hoban, the purpose of the event was simple - to share with others information on his sustainable management program in hopes of driving interest in organic golf course maintenance.   "It's dynamic and exciting," Hoban said. "I'd like to get more people into it. There are a lot of benefits."   The experience included six stations where visitors could get a crash course in golf course maintenance the Hoban way. Those stations were: Hoban's field trials, University of Georgia field trials, pollinator and butterfly habitats, organic topdressing, native grasses and composting.   Each was manned either by Hoban, or an expert in the field who has helped him over the years develop his program.   Hoban creates and buys both thermal and worm compost as ingredients in his own compost tea that introduces beneficial microbes, fungi, protozoa and nematodes to the soil. Hundreds of research trials are under way at Rivermont, examining the effects of dozens of organic nutritional programs and how effective they are either alone or in combination with other organic and inorganic products. Some of the trials are maintained by Hoban and his crew while others are the work of University of Georgia research specialists.  
    The grasses around tees are not maintained. I've never understood doing that. The only person who steps foot on it is the person mowing it."
     
    Hoban rated each of his trials for attendees, but he admits he needs more data over several years to determine which programs work best under which conditions.   "A lot of what we are doing is not to fruition yet," he said. "I like the feel-good stories: 'I tried it. It works great.' But we want the hard data."   Rivermont indeed stands out among Atlanta golf courses. The property occupies 188 acres, but through the years, Hoban has converted 26 acres of managed Bermudagrass to a variety of native plants that combine to frame golf holes with a palette of colors throughout the year.   Large patches that once were rough areas now are dotted with grasses that produce hues of green, orange and brown, and teeboxes are surrounded with hairy varieties of broomshedge, tall fescues and orchard grass.   "The grasses around tees are not maintained," Hoban said. "I've never understood doing that. The only person who steps foot on it is the person mowing it."   Native grasses in once-managed areas of the rough are not watered or fertilized, and they are not mowed.   "We've reduced rough mowing from two-and-a-half days to one," Hoban said. "That is huge for us to get all the roughs done in one day.   "That allows us to concentrate on the center cut."   Even the bunker sand at Rivermont is different with a dark brown color that looks more like dirt than sand. With clumps of native grasses in and around the bunkers and scruffy edges around the perimeter, the bunkers help invoke a feel of a golf course from another generation.   That was what Rivermont owner Chris Cupit, Hoban and architect Mike Riley were trying to create during a 2006 renovation.   "I wanted something that looked like it was built in 1910, 1920, the golden age of architecture," Riley said. "Chris wanted something completely different. If everyone else was going up, we were going down. If everyone was going left, we were going right."   Rivermont is different without being contrived, tricked up or hokey.   Some fairways and landing areas are open, while others are narrow. Some greens might be 4,000 square feet - or less - in size, while some others swell to as much as 10,000 square feet.   "We wanted to make it look like we found the golf course on the land, instead of shaping the golf course to the land," Riley said. "There are a lot of different textures and a lot of different colors at different times of the year, all adding to the composition of the golf hole.   "There were trade-offs on how much we could do and still keep membership interested in the golf course."   Those trade-offs also included a largely organic management plan that has helped Hoban save a little money. His compost tea program costs a grand total of $1.25 per acre. He harvests his own broomsedge to collect seed so he can plant new areas each year and expand his native grass areas. That is a smart move since that seed retails for about $900 per pound, according to Butch Gill of Turf Merchants.   "If you can educate people, save money, save labor and save fertility, it's going to make golf more affordable," said Gill, who was on hand to teach field day visitors about native grasses.   The area around Gill's station included native grasses planted last year, two years ago and four years ago, each with a distinctive appearance.   "This is an age of instant gratification, which means the golfer doesn't have the patience to grow this stuff in. This is not something that is instant. You need to have a rotation, and you have to educate members on where you are going with a program like this, or I can replace this whole fairway for you for about $600,000.   "This is not your ordinary rodeo."   If there was one consistent message from one station to the next, it was the need to maintain open lines of communication with the owner and members so they know the method to the madness.   There is a misconception that we nuke the golf course and besides the grass and the golfer everything else is dead, and that's just not true," Hoban said. "Our thing, is we don't just tell the golfer, they can see it."
      Hoban's office is an open door, and he is eager to share his message with anyone who wants to hear it, even golfers who often are treated to guided tours so they can learn why he is doing what he is doing.   "There is a misconception that we nuke the golf course and besides the grass and the golfer everything else is dead, and that's just not true. Our thing, is we don't just tell the golfer, they can see it."   Despite the touchy-feely experience, some are more receptive to the message than others.   "It's not just educating, it's selling," said Neil Thelen, a member at Rivermont for more than 15 years. "It took two to three years for members to get behind this program.   "It's still a struggle. Some members were quite hostile about this program, but it looks like heaven out here now. It took a while to educate them.   "When they see what they think is a problem, they want it fixed right now. Roll out some sod and away we go."   Nothing at Rivermont is that simple, especially applying nutrients to the turf.   Hoban creates and buys both thermal and worm compost as ingredients in his own compost tea that introduces beneficial microbes, fungi, protozoa and nematodes to the soil. He incorporates carbon-enhanced topdressing sand loaded with fulvic and humic acids that provide a food source for the microbes.   There are other benefits to the carbon sand. Brown in color, it brushes into the turf easily and is nearly invisible to golfers.   "When you use white sand, golfers are always asking why we're topdressing," Hoban said.   "With the brown sand, the carbon helps the biology, then you brush it in, throw some water on it and it's gone. You get the benefits of the carbon, which is longer, stronger roots, and the golfers have no idea you topdressed."  
    If you're not killing some grass now and then not learning anything. You're not finding out what will work what won't work, and you won't know the parameters of it."
     
    The program is not without its pitfalls.   "You don't know how far you can go with a program like this until you go too far," Hoban said. "This year, we went too far."   A difficult fall season in 2015 coupled with testing the limits of his program last spring combined to produce disease pressure, thinning turf in the fairways and a lot of upset golfers.   Hoban's mentor, 84-year-old Palmer Maples Jr., made the trip from Kansas City, Missouri, and said a little dead turf here and there helps superintendents discover their boundaries.   "If you're not killing some grass now and then, you're not learning anything," Maples said. "You're not finding out what will work and what won't work, and you won't know the parameters of it."   Much of what Hoban is doing includes helping organisms other than those found in the soil.   Emily Dobbs came armed with data to share with visitors about why pollinator zones and areas that are friendly to butterflies are a good idea on golf courses. Dobbs, a doctoral student at Emory University where she manages the Brosi Laboratory and studies the causes and effects of pollinator decline, helped establish the first Operation Pollinator zone for golf courses in 2011 when she was a master's student under entomologist Dan Potter, Ph.D., at the University of Kentucky.   At Kentucky, she established six zones around Lexington, including some on golf courses and at the UK research station. She also worked with Applewood Seed Co. in Arvada, Colorado to develop seed programs for plants native to the bluegrass state.   Her research showed that the typical golf course in central Kentucky might have enough flora to attract a half-dozen bee species. Establishing zones filled with a diverse mix of the right native plants, however, can attract all sorts of beneficial insects. After the first year of her pollinator zone program, she found as many as 25 different types of bees on her plots. In year two, as many as 75 bee species were flitting about golf courses in Lexington.   "That number is where you would top out for any location in Kentucky. The result is that we found maximum effort in two years," Dobbs said.   "We never expected to find that."   Operation Pollinator, a Syngenta initiative, is now on 14 Marriott golf courses, including the Griffin Gate Resort in Lexington, as well as 200 other locations across 30 states, according to Syngenta's Walt Osborne.    Like other parts of an organic program, establishing pollinator zones requires educating members about what you are doing. That is something Dobbs learned when she was first establishing the program in Kentucky.   "Most of the objections for OP program are because of aesthetics and mitigating disruption to play, which you can accomplish by choosing the right site," she said. "It's a matter of education for changing aesthetic preferences. People like things that look good if they are doing good, education. That might include giving them brochures on the OP program, having field days. More education will change perception of aesthetics."   Hoban also has established 28 bird boxes throughout the Rivermont property, which are managed by women who are members at the club. A total of 115 bluebirds, titmice and chickadees were fledged at the course last year.   "Golf is not just about where is your ball and how many strokes does it take to get there," Hoban said. "There's much more to it than that."
  • If conditions in Kentucky are any barometer of what might be expected in other parts of the country, summer is going to end with a bumper crop of white grubs.
      Adult beetles are swarming across the bluegrass state in numbers that University of Kentucky entomologist Dan Potter, Ph.D., says he hasn't seen in at least five years. Japanese beetles populations, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture says is the largest single pest in turf and agriculture, are especially high, but masked chafers and green June beetles also are present in larger-than-usual numbers, said Potter.   Most of the eggs, Potter said, will hatch in the next two-three weeks. There is a lot that golf course superintendents can do in the interim to keep root-eating white grub populations in check.   Preventive applications of chlorantraniliprole, imidacloprid, clothianidin, thiamethoxam or combo products with those active ingredients are all very effective at controlling early season grubs when applied from about the first week in May until the end of June, Potter said.    "Mid-July is later than optimum for preventive treatments," Potter said. "But I'd still expect to get decent control up to the end of July."   It is critical to target grubs as early as possible - the first instar stage if possible.    "Once the eggs have hatched and grubs are starting to get larger the options are more limited," Potter said. "Our most effective products for curative or rescue treatments are still Dylox and Arena. Carbaryl can also be used, but it is toxic to earthworms, requires higher rates, and seems a bit less effective than the other two. Curative or rescue applications often give no more than 75 percent control."   According to the USDA, nearly $500 million is spent annually to manage Japanese beetles and white grubs, almost half of which is spent in the turf industry.   So, why so many grubs this year?   That's a good question, says Potter, but significant beetle numbers likely is a sign of a warm, wet spring and summer.   "It is difficult to predict 'bad' or 'good' grub years, but we do know that soil moisture is one of the main keys," Potter said. "The eggs require about 10-11 percent soil moisture to hatch. The beetles seek moist soil with lush grass in which to lay their eggs. We've had a lot of rain in spring/summer 2016, good conditions for egg and larval survival. So we expect high grub populations going into August. If it keeps raining, turf may be vigorous enough to mask much of the grub injury, but we expect to see a lot of damage to low-mowed or moisture stressed turf in August and September."  
  • The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently granted label registration to Exteris Stressgard from Bayer Environmental Science.
     
    A succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor fungicide that combines fluopyram with trifloxystrobin, Exteris Stressgard features contact and systemic modes of action to offer preventive and curative disease control and plant health benefits in one package.
     
    It is labeled for control of a host of diseases, including dollar spot, brown patch and leaf spot. It also is effective at knocking back the disease-enhancing effects of guttation.
     
    The addition of Stressgard also improves plant health and visual turf quality.

    Each 2.5-gallon container, applied at a rate of 1.5-6 ounces per 1,000 square feet, treats up to 1.25-5 acres of turf.
     
  • Driving to work each day in one of San Francisco's most dangerous neighborhoods, Tom Hsieh feels a sense of satisfaction that the golf course he has overseen for the past dozen years is helping provide a leg up to those who need it most.
      Located between the downtrodden Excelsior and Visitacion Valley neighborhoods on the city's southeast side, Gleneagles Golf Course has been defying the odds since the Jack Fleming design opened in 1962 just up the hill from the then-new Candlestick Park.    For more than a decade, the course has served as a First Tee facility, giving at-risk youth a pathway to golf and the principles that prop up the game. For the past year, through a job-training struck with a local labor union and multiple municipal agencies, Gleneagles is providing dozens of adults down on their luck with a new career skills and a new lease on life.   "There are a couple things that have been really special in my experience at Gleneagles, which is now 12 years as a manager," said Hsieh, owner of Gleneagles Golf Partners that leases the course from the city. "I did not get into this business to change lives. I wanted to save a golf course and keep it going for myself and for the next generation. That was my altruistic purpose.   "When we opened up to The First Tee, I saw how golf can change lives. I saw kids who were 7 years old, and who are now 15-17 years old and who have stayed with it and who have become not only good golfers but great people. They are all from the neighborhood. They are all black and brown kids who would not be playing if not for the access to this neighborhood golf course.   "The second thing is this apprenticeship program. This is a totally different part of the community, but the same racial profile of people. They are black and brown, Asian as well. They are older, and they've had some really hard luck, some of it self-inflicted but they are on the side where they want to do better, and they've been given this - I don't want to say second chance, because for a lot of them they are well beyond that - but given this chance to improve themselves through this program. And the vast majority of them are taking advantage of that program. And that is really rewarding personally to watch that happen."   Named for a local union leader, the Mario de la Torre Training Academy provides union pre-apprenticeship training for up to a dozen low-level city workers, most of whom come from a broken past that includes run-ins with the law and time behind bars.    As many as 12 workers at a time are recruited from throughout various city departments to learn in incremental steps how to work on a golf course, starting with pulling weeds and clearing debris to eventually raking bunkers and operating power equipment. After each six-week session,"graduates" receive a union pre-apprenticeship certificate that allows them to apply to complete apprenticeship training so they can compete for other union jobs offering better pay and benefits.   A storage facility at the golf course has been repurposed - thanks to union-provided labor - into a classroom to help facilitate training.   The program is a joint effort that includes the Northern California District Council of Laborers, Local 26 and a host of city and county agencies (parks alliance, public utilities commission, public works, housing authority, department of environment, chief administrator's office, board of supervisors, mayor's office, unified school district).   The academy's goal is to equip at-risk residents with training and skills needed to be successful at work and in life. Two managers employed by Local 261 handle all training, which includes basic maintenance, operating basic equipment, introductory IPM, pulling weeds and safe tree management.   Workers spend the first week in Gleneagles' new classroom, learning golf course etiquette and how to act on the property.   "They are tooled up on safety instruction and what it means to be on the golf course, stuff that if you're not a golfer, you just don't know," Hsieh said. "They learn a lot of soft skills in that first week, in fact in all six weeks."   The city and Gleneagles budgeted for as many a total of 80 people to work at Gleneagles across five separate six-week sessions in the first year. A total of 63 people went through the program in its first 12 months, including a dozen graduates who secured city jobs with union wages. As soon as one six-week session ends, the next begins.   "They were taking one-week breaks between sessions, but now they are going end to end," Hsieh said. "We are happy to have them and have the help all the time."   Workers are paid through their city jobs while working at Gleneagles. A fundraiser golf tournament helped raise money to contribute to the program so it can continue into the future.   While elected leaders in Washington, D.C., talk about the need to retrain the underemployed for a brighter future, Hsieh and public officials in San Francisco are actually doing it.   "The vision is to create job training and career pathways for people who are underskilled and underemployed," Hsieh said. "It takes six different city departments to make this happen. It's a very large effort to ask the city to be partner with a private entity."   Two union managers handle all training and discipline. Workers are required to wear a uniform, steel-toed work boots and a hard hat, and they are expected to be on time. Hsieh said he is amazed to watch the workers grow into the position as each six-week session progresses.   "They look bedraggled the first week," Hsieh said. "No one tells them how to dress. By week three, they get it. They carry themselves in a different manner, because now it is getting serious; they are working with power tools, they have been taught how to mix oil and gas and they're mowing tees.   They are constantly evaluated as they go by their managers. If they don't show up on time, they get released. They are expected to be on time, prepared to learn, have a positive attitude and a team dynamic. All of them want to better themselves."   The program has transformed Gleneagles into much more than just a forgotten golf course in a forgotten part of the city. For some, it represents a promise for a future that didn't exist before.    "Gleneagles is in a neighborhood in one of the worst parts of the city. That has become a strong point for the program," Hsieh said. "It is now a community resource, because the people in this program are from this neighborhood. They are now a success and they can walk to work."   City-owned Gleneagles never has enjoyed the perks of Harding Park, its well-heeled municipal sibling that rims Lake Merced on the city's west side, at least not since Hsieh has run the course.   While Harding Park was flush with union labor, Gleneagles' success (or failure) largely was left to the imagination and slight of hand of whoever leased it from the city. For the past 12 years, that has been Hsieh. He puts his own money, not the city's, into the course and gets to keep the profits if there are any, and usually there aren't any.   At the same time the PGA Tour was in talks to bring a host of championship events to Harding Park, gunfire echoed in the neighborhoods around Gleneagles - literally. While the course was undergoing a restoration project seven years ago, a stray bullet screamed through the cab of piece of equipment, missing the operator (an employee from the nearby California Golf Club of San Francisco) by mere inches.   Although there wasn't much Hsieh could do about neighborhood crime, he knew something had to change about how the barebones way in which the golf course was managed.   With only two full-time employees on the golf course working tirelessly to keep Gleneagles playable, years of deferred maintenance were taking a toll. Debris and dead or dying trees cluttered the edges of the property.    In 2014, he entered into negotiations with the Local 261 and city agencies to start a program that would provide much-needed labor help on the golf course, would give the city's at-risk community a chance for a new start and the union an avenue to train them.   Union workers spent much of the first year learning how to clear debris and trees using a skid steer and other equipment and haul everything off the property. There is enough work to keep workers in the union program busy for years.   "This program just happens to have met the needs of each party," Hsieh said. "The union needed a site for their workers, workers needed new training and we certainly can use the help. The concept of turning our site into a classroom made sense. There is still so much work that needs to be done."

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