Zoysia

One of the interesting differences between zoysia varieties is their seedhead production. On putting greens, the seedheads have a white or silvery appearance. I’m not sure that golf players notice the seedheads, but the seedheads are obvious to turfgrass managers when they look at the sward.

The 50th KBC Augusta golf tournament will be held at Keya Golf Club in Fukuoka next week. This is an especially interesting golf tournament because of the grass types used—korai (Zoysia matrella) on greens, fairways, and tees, with noshiba (Zoysia japonica) in the rough.

I got to see a lot of beautiful and interesting turfgrass around the world in 2022. I looked through my photos from the year and chose these as my favorites.

I was in Japan for two weeks to work at the KBC Augusta tournament, have meetings, and visit turfgrass sites. On this trip, I made a deliberate effort to record some videos to show a few things that I find interesting about turfgrass management in Japan.

Here’s an interesting new article by Katuwal et al.: Multilocational screening identifies new drought-tolerant, warm-season turfgrasses. This article describes the results for four species: bermudagrass, St. Augustinegrass, seashore paspalum, and zoysiagrass.

Korai (Zoysia) putting greens have a distinctive roll because of the stiff leaf blades. One consequence of this is a slower green speed than bermudagrass when given the same maintenance.

Have you ever seen seedheads on zoysia? Have you ever planted zoysia sod and seen a lot of seeds on some pieces but not on others? I’ve seen this a lot, and I’m not the only one.

I’m sometimes asked what my favorite golf course is. That’s a tough question to answer, because I don’t really rank courses that way. My way of ranking is more eclectic—I make lists of the best courses I’ve seen inside racetracks, best golf courses accessible only by boat, best extra holes, that sort of thing.

I made my first trip to Gainesville and the University of Florida last week when I visited the turfgrass field laboratory at Citra, then gave a seminar (recorded screencast here) on campus about my research.

I’ve noticed that traffic—just enough traffic—can transform some grasses into an amazing type of surface. I’ve seen this with Cynodon in China, with Festuca in Iceland, and in other places as well, but those are a couple that come to mind.