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When you measure the clipping volume, one of the many valuable things you can do is sum the measurements from each mow to get the annual total. When you have the annual total, you can start adjusting the growth up and down to produce more consistent surfaces.

I have been looking at some of the most extreme locations to grow grass. One aspect of that is the amount of water in the air. I downloaded hourly weather data for a number of cities, then calculated the daily average temperature and the daily average dew point temperature, and then looked only at the days in the first month of the most recent meteorological summer.

Dew point depression is a convenient way to look at how humid the conditions are. This has some practical application to turfgrass growing conditions and just how much heat and disease pressure the grass is facing.

Soil testing timelines can detect changes in product application. If you add lime, you’ll see a change in the pH timeline. If you stop adding Mn, you’ll see a change in the Mn timeline.

Last December I collected OM246 samples from six greens at a 27 hole facility—two greens from each nine. This course has been rebuilding greens nine holes at a time, which is a great way to establish a gradient of total organic material at the surface of the greens.

Field data from multiple golf courses show the 1:1 sand-to-clipping ratio lets OM246 increase over time. A revised equation, d = K · V · (100 − OM%) / OM% with K ≈ 0.106, sets sand depth from clipping volume and starting organic matter.

One of the items in my blog posts TODO file has the heading Zoysia and water use Wherley et al. “Didn’t I already write about that one?” I thought to myself as I was checking the list.

Zoysiagrass sod in Japan and Korea is typically cut into small pieces that are easy to handle. I had a conversation with Dr. Mike Richardson and Andrew McDaniel about this some time ago, but at that time I wasn’t able to find the photos I wanted to demonstrate the “each piece on its own, with topdressing between allowing the grass to grow together” method.

I enjoyed reading Brian Arnall’s “Mechanisms of soil fertility: looking at biologicals and MOA” on Oklahoma State University’s Down and Dirty with NPK site. Here are some key passages. At the start:

I realized it’s the end of April and I haven’t written any new posts on the ATC site this month. Here are some recent updates I’ve published at PACE Turf, which cover a wide range of topics.