Independent turfgrass researcher John Dempsey, Ph.D., joined me to discuss evaluating treatment effects and the importance of having a good control. We talked about diseases, nutrition, and this blog post: https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/problem-with-the-controls/ Find John on X at https://x.com/J_J_Dempsey Read more about all kinds of turfgrass topics at https://www.asianturfgrass.com/Get ATC newsletters at https://www.asianturfgrass.com/newsletter/Turfgrass information and...

Dr. Henry Qu, partner and data scientist at Oxbridge Economics, joined me to talk about data analysis, and statistics, and how to try to learn things in turfgrass science. We discussed NTEP, posterior distributions, disease resistance, ANOVA, total organic material expectations by species, the process of learning, and much more. ATC blog post about surface organic material of putting greens: https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/total-organic-matter-surface-putting-greens/Henry's 2023 CSSA...

Jon Wall, golf course superintendent at Shanqin Bay, joined me to discuss doing more work to make grass better, rather than doing less. And also about what I'd want everyone to do, which is doing the right amount of work for your property. We talked about many things, starting off with: Better turf conditions with more intensive maintenance blog post: https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/doing-more-work/Our previous conversation about sustainable turfgrass management:...

It's summer in the northern hemisphere, and the two items discussed in this episode provide guidance on managing turf when it has to survive through heat stress. From the ATC website, a 12 point list: https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/catching-up-on-reading-heat-stress/From PACE Turf, the Heat Kills document: https://www.paceturf.org/member/Documents/0108.pdfRead more about all kinds of turfgrass topics at https://www.asianturfgrass.com/Get ATC newsletters at...

Carl Schimenti from Cornell University joined me to discuss intro to #MLSN explanations vs. using MLSN the way it is designed to be used. We also talked a lot about ball roll assessment using the #BobbleTest, and the USGA GS3 ball, and other methods. MLSN project page: https://www.asianturfgrass.com/mlsn/Daniel Palin with the MLSN test on The Talking Greenkeper: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daniel-palin/id1435947281?i=1000647459615Blog post on one additional chatter of snaking event...

Soil P, pH, and salinity are a few things that likely vary by depth in your rootzone. I've started recommending that 20% of putting greens tested be done with a sample divided at the 5 cm depth. Send the lab a 0-5 cm and 5-10 cm depth sample from that green, rather than the standard 0-10 cm depth sample. I discussed this blog post: https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/reconstructing-soil-p-from-disassembled-soil-samples/ The MLSN page on the ATC site: https://www.asianturfgrass.com/mlsn/ Read...

Maggie Reiter joined me to discuss how the start (and end) of the turfgrass maintenance season might be predicted. When is spring green-up? When does the season end?  We discussed, and showed charts of growth potential and temperature, from this post: https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/maps-of-average-temperatures-in-the-usa/The Sunday Lawn Care plansWe discussed the article "An examination of turfgrass species use on golf course putting greens" by Brosnan et al., which you can read, and see...

Bill Kreuser, Ph.D., president of GreenKeeper, joined me to discuss the new water resource planning tools in GreenKeeper, along with disease risk, PGRs, soil surfactants, and weather data. See more about these tools at the GreenKeeper app: https://www.greenkeeperapp.com/Irrigation posts at the ATC website: https://www.asianturfgrass.com/tag/irrigation/ Read more about all kinds of turfgrass topics at https://www.asianturfgrass.com/Get ATC newsletters at...

I discuss small plot university research with fixed treatments vs. golf course and sports turf maintenance with treatments that vary, and consider which results we should trust more. I also discuss the bobble test after 270 rounds, mention that core sweepers are a nice machine, and explain how I estimate N harvested in creeping bentgrass clippings. Posts discussed and relevant links include: https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/ball-roll-after-270-rounds/Short bobble test video with T-Jay...

I describe what  we can learn from looking at five years of Mehlich 3 soil test phosphorus results from golf course putting greens, how to calculate the turfgrass speedo in a standard way, rather than in a chaotic way, and recommend an episode of the Cornell Turfgrass Show that asks if soil testing is the answer to all your problems. These are the links to posts and videos mentioned in the...

T-Jay Creamer joined me to discuss bentgrass & Poa annua (bent-Poa) management with a surprisingly low annual N rate, almost no use of PGRs, and no aeration (other than occasional needle tining) for more than two years. The results surprise me, and they may surprise you too. We discussed this blog post about the turf speedo: https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/turf-speedo-looks-like-this/ Follow T-Jay on X at https://x.com/TJayC17 Read more about all kinds of turfgrass topics at...

In this episode, I discuss sixteen year old bentgrass greens that have also gone sixteen years without  P fertilizer. The greens are also free of Poa annua. Then I discuss how fertilizer recommendations made from soil tests are a lot more precise if the time duration over which the fertilizer is being recommended is considered explicitly. And I explain why, when measuring #ClipVol, you will get value from annual totals too. P & Poa with Bob Raley is this post...

Jim Huntoon joined me from Horry-Georgetown Technical College to discuss overseeding and the hows and whys of this common practice on warm-season turf that goes dormant in winter. We discussed these two blog posts:- https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/optimum-overseeding-time-windows/- https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/zoysia-beats-bermuda-on-some-greens/ You can see my slides and handout from the Palmetto GCSA Education Meeting at this link:...

Maggie Reiter joined me to reminisce about the grasses one can find at the back of the 7th green at Pebble Beach Golf Links, to consider soil test results for lawns, what the biggest problems are on lawns and whether solutions exists, and much more. Maggie is a Data Scientist at Sunday, https://www.getsunday.com/The blog post with the photo of grasses at Pebble Beach is: https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/flights-turf-photos/We discussed EPA ecoregion maps, which you can read more about at...

This is a follow-up to the episode last week when I mentioned that I was looking at snow outside, that the light would be ample for growth, but the temperatures were below freezing and thus temperature was limiting the growth. I discuss the new blog post that shows those light data. An example of ample DLI: https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/an-example-of-ample-dli/ The USGA Green Section Record with the fine podcast, frost research, Pat Jones article, and much more:...

The growth potential converts air temperature to a 0 to 1 (or 0 to 100%) scale. Of course, there are a lot more things that affect actual growth, including light, nitrogen, and water. I discuss these and why I'm not so convinced that adding a light factor to GP makes it more useful. The blog post discussed here is https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/light-and-gp-again/ This calculator finds full sun PPFD and DLI for any location on any date:...

This episode goes through a lot of updates from both the ATC and the PACE Turf websites. Topics discussed include OM246, the problem with frequent soil testing, the problem when getting soil tests done by some fertilizer companies, normal N content of grass leaves, and coefficient of uniformity (Cu) of rootzone sands. More information and and decision-making tools at https://www.paceturf.org/, this episode's sponsor. Blog posts discussed...

Adam Moeller joined me to discuss how to manage greens in 2024. We talked about his research at Purdue University on sand and bentgrass and coring and N rates, and about clipping volume and OM246 testing and how we might manage turf and look at sands today. This post got the Doublecut introduction, about how to figure out an estimate of N harvest from clippings, and how to systematically adjust N rate based on turfgrass growth ratio:...

Brian joined me to discuss his recommended soil sampling strategy for an 18 hole golf course. We also discussed what he teaches in a 2 hour GCSAA seminar on physical testing. Mavis Consulting website with lots of resources: http://mavisconsulting.com/ This blog post on soil sampling got the Doublecut treatment: https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/composite-samples-1/ Brian's article on turf testing techniques from GCM magazine:...

The 2018 article by Bryan and Tyler Hopkins, "Carbon: the next frontier in fertilization?" concludes that we "should not be fertilizing with carbon." Bryan joined me to discuss this article. The blog post about their article remains one of the top viewed on the ATC website, six years after publication: https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/is-carbon-the-next-frontier-in-fertilization/ Original article from Crops & Soils: https://doi.org/10.2134/cs2018.51.0307 My calculation of how much...

Zoysiagrass can seed year round when the conditions are right. In this episode, I discuss what those conditions are, share some tools for getting a site-specific sand topdressing estimate, describe the reshuffling of top posts on the ATC website, and discuss using a line laser to measure the effective height of cut. I have also recently been the guest on The Tie podcast and on The Talking Greenkeeper. Listen to those episodes and then let me know if you think the philosophy of greenkeeping I...

Joe Gulotti, The Talking Greenkeeper, joined me to discuss the ATC blog posts that received the fewest views in 2023. We give these topics one more chance, while talking about quality of ball roll, playability, fertilizer, surface firmness, seminars, translation, and much more. The blog post with these 10 blog post "bombs" is https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/ten-posts-no-one-read-2023/ Joe's The Talking Greenkeeper podcast is at...

With Google Analytics I can check the pages on the ATC website that get the most views. These were the ten posts from 2023 that got the most pageviews. These posts are listed, with direct links to each, at https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/ten-posts-no-one-read-2023/ Read more about all kinds of turfgrass topics at https://www.asianturfgrass.com/Get ATC newsletters at https://subscribepage.com/atc_newslettersTurfgrass information and decision-making tools at https://www.paceturf.org/PACE...

I looked through my "Flights and favorite turf photos" post to see what I learned, or what I was reminded of, through these photos. I discuss N rate, grass species, dormancy, traffic, leaf area, crew size, Poa annua, pesticides, and a lot more. This is the post I discussed: https://www.asianturfgrass.com/post/flights-favorite-turf-photos-2023/ I mentioned my book "A Short Grammar of Greenkeeping" https://leanpub.com/short_grammar_of_greenkeeping Here are some related videos: - About spouter...