Zoysia

Fred Varcoe wrote about putting greens on Japanese golf courses in the August 2016 issue of Euro Biz Japan. The article, [Know your greens (pdf, 3 MB)][1], includes some quotes from me about bentgrass, korai, and how balls roll on putting greens.

When Eric Reasor flew from Tennessee to Thailand, he brought along measuring tools to assess how golf balls roll across putting greens. He visited 22 golf courses in 5 days.

I led a seminar in which I discussed how much one can expect grass to grow. During that seminar, I said something like: grass can always grow more, but turfgrass managers restrict the growth rate by supplying less nitrogen fertilizer than the grass can use.

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…

One of the best places to study tropical grasses in Southeast Asia is at the Suanluang Rama IX Public Park in Bangkok’s Prawet District. The two primary species on lawns at Suanluang Rama IX are tropical carpetgrass (Axonopus compressus) in shaded areas and manilagrass (Zoysia matrella) in open areas.

I sure can. The first thing I look at for different species is the Kew RBG GrassBase. Here are the entries for Zoysia matrella and Zoysia japonica. Both are perennial, mat forming grasses.

This is something that has never made sense to me. Actually, it seems ridiculous. Zoysia greens are not renowned for being especially fast. But zoysia has especially high silica content in the leaves.

This chart shows the temperature-based growth potential for cool (C3) and warm (C4) season grasses at Beijing and Seoul. It is too cold in winter for any type of grass to grow, and during the spring, summer, and autumn, C3 species will grow more than C4 species.

Following up on the low temperature analyses (first one, second one) as they are related to creeping bentgrass during hot summer weather, I have taken a look at a single location over time.

… it doesn’t. In fact, there is one variety of manilagrass (Zoysia matrella) that consistently grows faster than bermudagrass in Southeast Asia. I’ve had occasion to study and measure this grass, and there is no doubt that it grows faster than bermuda here.