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September 23--
Here are some pics illustrating the effect of Tenacity on the bentgrass in our greens surrounds. The first picture is showing 17 colllar which has a very high population of bentgrass as is shown by the consistent white color throughout. The green strip is where I ran a strip of Tenacity (2nd application) last year. It shows much more blue/ryegrass as more bent was killed last year.
The second picture is around 18 green. You can see the grass right around the green surface is much darker indicating more rye/blue and less bent. Why would that be? That area receives a tremendous amount of traffic due to mower turnarounds (both greens and collar mowers). The ryegrass handles the extra traffic much better than the bent and is outcompeting it and becoming more dominant in the stand. This started occuring when we began overseeding ryegrass 3 or 4 years ago but was hastened by last year's Tenacity application.
The last picture is a closeup of what is happening within the turf on the collars. The darker lines are the overseeded bluegrass from last year. In between those lines is the dying bentgrass. Harder to see are the smaller seedlings from this years overseeding which will help fill the void of dead bentgrass.
2013 Tenacity Application
Here is that same area in the first picture above from the prior year. Notice the stripe of ryegrass.
We have talked alot about the transition of grass types on our greens surrounds. These two pictures illustrate how the chemical applications we made this fall are helping us accomplish that. The dark stripe you see is where I took the spot sprayer and made a second application of Tenacity in a month. What you see is a predominance of ryegrass where we removed more bentgrass with that second app. As we have discussed before we wanted to do a second application this fall, but we didn't feel comfortable doing that on a large scale. That stripe looks good but what you cant see is the ryegrass is pretty thin in that strip and would affect playability. So we decided to go conservatively this year but can get more aggressive in future years. The second picture shows a similar chemical application from last year. Again you see the darker ryegrass dominating in that stripe. While color is not the reason for choosing rye/bluegrass over bentgrass you can see it is an added benefit of switching grass types.
You surely have noticed the whitening of some areas of certain fairways if you have been out lately. This is again the work of the chemical Tenacity. On #14, 15, 16, and 17 fairways we sprayed some large areas of the fairway that had numerous bentgrass patches. You can also see several splotches throughout the course where we have targeted bentgrass by spot spraying isolated patches. The applications made to #1, 3, 10 and 18 are a bit different in their purpose. We are always looking for new or better ways to keep our fairways pure and this is a test to see what rate and/or timing of Tenacity might be most effective on Poa and rough bluegrass. Just as was the case with the surrounds, these areas will be pretty stark for awhile but will gradually green back up and we can assess how much of the unwanted grass was removed.
Here are some pics illustrating the effect of Tenacity on the bentgrass in our greens surrounds. The first picture is showing 17 colllar which has a very high population of bentgrass as is shown by the consistent white color throughout. The green strip is where I ran a strip of Tenacity (2nd application) last year. It shows much more blue/ryegrass as more bent was killed last year.
The second picture is around 18 green. You can see the grass right around the green surface is much darker indicating more rye/blue and less bent. Why would that be? That area receives a tremendous amount of traffic due to mower turnarounds (both greens and collar mowers). The ryegrass handles the extra traffic much better than the bent and is outcompeting it and becoming more dominant in the stand. This started occuring when we began overseeding ryegrass 3 or 4 years ago but was hastened by last year's Tenacity application.
The last picture is a closeup of what is happening within the turf on the collars. The darker lines are the overseeded bluegrass from last year. In between those lines is the dying bentgrass. Harder to see are the smaller seedlings from this years overseeding which will help fill the void of dead bentgrass.
2013 Tenacity Application
We have talked alot about the transition of grass types on our greens surrounds. These two pictures illustrate how the chemical applications we made this fall are helping us accomplish that. The dark stripe you see is where I took the spot sprayer and made a second application of Tenacity in a month. What you see is a predominance of ryegrass where we removed more bentgrass with that second app. As we have discussed before we wanted to do a second application this fall, but we didn't feel comfortable doing that on a large scale. That stripe looks good but what you cant see is the ryegrass is pretty thin in that strip and would affect playability. So we decided to go conservatively this year but can get more aggressive in future years. The second picture shows a similar chemical application from last year. Again you see the darker ryegrass dominating in that stripe. While color is not the reason for choosing rye/bluegrass over bentgrass you can see it is an added benefit of switching grass types.
You surely have noticed the whitening of some areas of certain fairways if you have been out lately. This is again the work of the chemical Tenacity. On #14, 15, 16, and 17 fairways we sprayed some large areas of the fairway that had numerous bentgrass patches. You can also see several splotches throughout the course where we have targeted bentgrass by spot spraying isolated patches. The applications made to #1, 3, 10 and 18 are a bit different in their purpose. We are always looking for new or better ways to keep our fairways pure and this is a test to see what rate and/or timing of Tenacity might be most effective on Poa and rough bluegrass. Just as was the case with the surrounds, these areas will be pretty stark for awhile but will gradually green back up and we can assess how much of the unwanted grass was removed.
