A non-comprehensive list of awesome turfgrass things other people did in 2018

Last year I made one of these lists for the first time. I’m sure I’ve missed lots of awesome things. If you’d like to add them, please do so in the comments.

• The GCSAA gave their President’s Award for Environmental Stewardship to Frank Rossi.
• Beth Guertal’s Verdure column in GCM is an excellent read each month, highlighting and explaining some of the most interesting and topical turf research.
• The USGA has new recommendations for a method of putting green construction.
• The Smith-Kerns dollar spot model article was published.
• Romain Giraud introduced the NMND: Niveau minimum pour une nutrition durable. I’m so impressed by this project and looking forward to its progress.
• Everyone in turfgrass who published their articles open access so anyone can read them. A couple of my favorites this year—Reasor et al. on growing degree day models for ultradwarf greens and Guertal and McElroy on phosphorus and Poa annua.
• Maggie Reiter shared a lot of interesting things from #TurfTourism to this grid map of USA land use:

Cool #dataviz showing US land use, including 2 million acres devoted to golf courses https://t.co/Y0JCoBovU9 pic.twitter.com/h1o935eZKR

— Maggie Reiter (@maggie_reiter) July 31, 2018

• Jason Haines. He had 22 posts on the Turf Hacker blog. They are all worth a read. I really appreciate his MLSN math tutorial. He shared all his productivity files. How cool is that? Oh, and there was this thoughtful video too:

• Chris Tritabaugh thought about naps at work.
• Oregon State Turf shared an astonishing video of disease development:

Time lapse of disease from October to February. Looking forward to seeing everyone at Microdochium Patch Field Day tomorrow #highpressureyear #osubeaverturf #microdochiumfieldday pic.twitter.com/6KSkstV8Yp

— Oregon State Turf (@osubeaverturf) February 26, 2018

• Joe Gulotti wrote some fine columns for Golfdom and started his Talking Greenkeeper podcast. It’s been getting rave reviews.
• Bill Kreuser shared the latest PGR scheduling information.
• Allan Dewald showed one way to collect clipping volume:

A quick video of how we are collecting and measuring clipping yield. Quick and easy, takes less than a min and provides great info. #clipvol pic.twitter.com/HGvTQoDIW0

— Allan Dewald (@allan_dewald) March 16, 2018

• Bill Kreuser and Frank Rossi talked about clipping yield and managing turfgrass growth. Highly recommended.
• Lots of great video content this year. I was impressed with “The Greenkeepers” short video from The Open:

Have you ever wondered what goes into making a golf course fit for The Open? We caught up with @carnoustiegolf head greenkeeper @CraigBoath 🚜 #TheOpen pic.twitter.com/SAdVY3LOes

— The Open (@TheOpen) July 21, 2018

• And there was this stunning video from the Ryder Cup, highlighting the work of Alejandro Reyes and the team there:

• Jim Brosnan has great advice about Poa control.
• Doug Karcher has the best wetting agent photos.

It’s fun to evaluate wetting agent trials in late summer. No plot plan needed to pick out untreated controls. pic.twitter.com/2IqmOho1TJ

— Doug Karcher (@uarkturf) August 28, 2018

• T-Jay Creamer and J. Paul Robertson sat down between two bunker rakes.

• The Hamilton GC Course Maintenance blog has some thoughtful posts. I really enjoyed this one about decreasing organic matter without coring.
• Not exactly turfgrass, but an important and related topic. Murray et al. wrote an international consensus statement on golf and health. You can read it in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
• Graeme Roberts shared some wonderful photos. I was especially impressed with these trees:

Trees aren’t all bad on a golf course from a photography point of view. Still plenty that could be trimmed at ground level though. 🌲 pic.twitter.com/UKmtxgApHN

— Graeme Roberts (@GJRobertsTurf) October 10, 2018

• When it comes to golf course photographs, Jonathan Wood shares a ton of great ones.
• Jon Wall has one of the best Turf Twitter accounts. This is just a sample from scores of fine posts he made in 2018.

What I thought I said: "Keep your hands on the sides of the handle so as not to bounce the mower"

What I must have said: "Pretend you're riding a horse" pic.twitter.com/cPrJbvCD3O

— Jon Wall (@DirtyBulk) September 18, 2018

• Schmid et al. wrote an article describing K deficiency that increased anthracnose severity of annual bluegrass.
• Sue Crawford continues to share awesome results like this:

Poa roots in push up greens haven’t decreased this summer and are still going strong into September. Two years into #mlsn approach to fertilizing and measuring #clipvol to manage putting surfaces. 👍 pic.twitter.com/icr4UcQ297

— Sue Crawford (@eastcoastsue1) September 9, 2018

• Joel Kachmarek’s post about the irrigation system history at Tacoma Country and Golf Club is superb.
• Every superintendent (or staff members) who filled out the information for the GCSAA Tournament Fact Sheets. And the GCSAA for sharing this information.

I’ve missed a lot, I’m sure. Feel free to add more awesome things in the comments. And here’s the non-comprehensive awesome list from last year. And this idea is based on Jeff Leek’s non-comprehensive awesome lists from Simply Statistics.