I see a lot of grass in driveways, parks, lawns, and fields when I run around southern Thailand. And because I can’t run very fast, and I happen to be curious about grasses, I get a pretty good look at what is growing.
This is usually where I show a map with all my flights, mention that they took me some hundred thousands of kilometers, and then share some of my favorite turf photos from all the places I went.
I’ve been using the NASA POWER agroclimatology data for a few projects. I get the data using the convenient nasapower R package by Adam Sparks. There is also a web-based map data access viewer.
I’ve seen a lot of highways in Thailand. Highway medians are sodded with manilagrass (Zoysia matrella) as a matter of course (more about the cost of that below). I’ve seen some impressive vistas of this work in past years, but for safety reasons haven’t been able to get any photos.
Have you ever seen patches like this on Zoysia turf?
Maybe the early stages of an intense large patch outbreak, or elephant’s footprint (Rhizoctonia cerealis) that got out of control? Way out of control?
I spent a morning with Brad Revill at Nikanti GC last month. I wanted to see the course, get some measurements, see the clipping volume measurement, and talk about turf management with Brad.
When I play golf, I much prefer to walk, so the choice between walking and riding is usually an easy one.
These all-terrain vehicles are staged near the first tee, ready for action.
At the end of every year, I like to look at my flight map and at some of my favorite turf photos.
In 2019 I was on 56 flights over 161,473 km (100,335 miles).
This is a quick way to get smoother fairways. The fairways at Bangsai Country Club near Bangkok have been rolled with a 10 ton vibratory road roller to make them smoother and, one presumes, a bit firmer.