Environment

Yesterday I responded to two questions related to carbon emissions associated with electricity generation. This was part of a broader discussion started by Jason Haines about small electric autonomous mowers.

Jason Haines has written recently about The future of robot mowers today and I recommend having a read of that post for more insight, and some videos of these types of machines.

In the latest World Golf Report, I came across a link to Giles Morgan’s post on Sport – it’s all about Darwinning. This was a broad discussion of sports thriving – or not.

A fine-bladed manilagrass growing faster than Tifeagle bermudagrass. I’ve written about zoysia growing faster than bermuda. Mike Richardson asked: so, the real question…is that better? “Slow growing” has always been one of my favorite traits of zoysia…

The MLSN guidelines were developed from a large dataset of soil tests collected from good-performing turf. You’re probably familiar with the MLSN guideline as a minimum level, with fertilizer recommended to make sure the soil doesn’t drop below the guideline.

This is no secret among turfgrass scientists—there isn’t a lot of good justification to support what we call conventional guidelines for soil nutrients in turfgrass. And by that, I mean the conventional guidelines are broken.

This is a continuation of the fall nitrogen topic that I deliberately raised in a couple of blog posts. See these for some background: Spring reflections on autumn impressions On fertilizer, and whether it should change by season Many turf managers get great results with late fall nitrogen applications.

I was browsing the Sir John Bennet Lawes timeline and discovered this excellent video with plant ecologist Jonathan Storkey introducing the Park Grass Experiment. The Park Grass experiment at Rothamsted was started in 1856 and has been continuously monitored ever since.

This is an extraordinarily good video about grasses, mowing, construction, irrigation, soils, playability, maintenance cost, and more. If you are interested in these topics, watch this interview with Don Mahaffey.

In the autumn, some turf managers make applications of nitrogen (N) at relatively high rates. Specifically, the applications supply more N than the turf can use at that time – I’m using at that time to mean within the next month after the application date.