Posts

A question came up about optimum clipping volume and whether that quantity of clippings changes by season. That amount must change for any location at which there are seasonal changes in the weather.

Last year I wrote about manilagrass (Zoysia matrella) sod on highway medians in Thailand. I showed photos of a recently planted median, and explained why zoysia doesn’t persist in this environment when maintained without supplemental irrigation and regular mowing.

This is a philosophical one. I happened to look up the definition of inertia. I had thought it meant something like continuing doing what one has been doing, like a passive continuation of the route one is traveling once started on that route.

Turfgrass creates a lot of soil organic matter (SOM), also called humus, and the quantities of carbon (C) in that organic matter might surprise you. I made this chart to summarize the amount of C in the top 10 cm (4 inches) of a turfgrass rootzone.

One of the things I’ve started looking at when doing OM246 reports is the combined OM in the top 6 cm (2.4 inches) of the rootzone. This shows the big picture of total organic material change at the surface of the rootzone.

You’ve probably listened to one of my seminars in which I explained why conventional nutrient guidelines for turfgrass are broken. Jackie Guevara’s thesis on “Effects of Different Soil Testing Philosophies on Creeping Bentgrass and Annual Bluegrass Putting Greens” is an excellent demonstration of this.

You won’t find these at every golf course in Japan, but it is common to see a green condition (グリーンコンディション) information board prominently displayed at the clubhouse. The Facebook page for Monthly Golf Management magazine (月刊ゴルフマネジメント) shared a beautiful photo gallery with representative examples of these green condition boards.

I’ve written a lot about OM246 testing for total organic material by depth in the soil, and why I think this test is so useful. Something I hadn’t written, until this week, is my own set of sampling instructions.

I’ve used many different methods to assess the quality of ball roll on putting greens. This is not the distance the ball rolls—that measurement is commonly called the speed of the greens.

Some things I show and explain about turfgrass are well-suited to video format. I’ve put together many videos over the years, and have started gathering them into one place at the ATC channel on YouTube.