NIEMIEC / MEJCHAR INGENUITY = SUSTAINABLE BENT GRASS

It's no secrete that bentgrass loves acid fertility and iron. Give bent a consistent diet of iron sulfate, ammonium sulfate and it will thrive, but how do you do that efficiently, safely and economically? Well with a little background information from our friends Jeff Johnson and Nick Folk of the Minikahda Club in Minneapolis, MN. our staff headed by John Niemiec and Mark Mejchar with some assistance from Nick Narlock built a 1550 gallon mix tank that will mix inexpensive agricultural fertilizers into a deluxe diet formula that will keep the bent grass happy for a long time while making its ugly cousin poa annua rather sad. How did the boys do it? Well, you let these guys look at someones mouse trap, Minnikada's in this case, and they  can't resist the urge to build a better one, and they have. This setup will have better agitation and the ability to download faster so we can crank out the loads to our fairways and greens in a timely fashion. And they put it all together for less than $2,200. This setup will save our club Thousands of $$ over the course of the next few years and make our members and our bentgrass, very happy! Once again American Ingenuity Pays Off!

Wow! 6 hours, shop to Moorland

The Putting Green Performance Pyramid USGA Green Section Record. Chris Hartwiger

DON'T UNDERACHIEVE ON YOUR GREENS UTILIZE ALL ELEMENTS OF THE PYRAMID

USGA: 2 – 4 – 6 – 8 We Dont Need To Cultivate - August 2010

USGA: 2 – 4 – 6 – 8 We Dont Need To Cultivate - August 2010

Lack of Air Movement Thins-Out #6 Green

Hot humid days and nights, 23" of rain in 9 weeks and a lack of air movement over the surface of this small green weakened the grass to such a degree that it no longer can tolerant normal golfing traffic or mowing without thinning out.

An article in the Wall Street Journal, The Ugly Summer of 2010, by John Paul Newport explains why this occurs. "Grass does have a mechanism to cool itself. It's called evapotranspiration and is analogous to perspiration. The roots draw up water from the soil and it evaporates through the plant's leaves, dissipating heat. But when greens are scalped to a quarter-inch, an eighth of an inch and even shorter, the leaf surface available for transpiration declines."
"Prolonged heat causes other problems. One is that root systems shrink, sometimes to within a half-inch of the surface, reducing the amount of water drawn up to the top. Humidity and heavy rain make things even worse. Humidity retards evaporation, while soggy soil stays hot longer than dry soil does. Puddles and saturated soil also create barriers that prevent needed oxygen from getting to the roots. Even when the combination of these factors doesn't kill bentgrass and poa annua outright, it weakens the turf significantly and renders greens more susceptible to fungus and disease."
"When hot weather hits bentgrass courses, course superintendents raise mowing heights. That yields more leaf surface and improves evapotranspiration but can slow down putts by a foot or more on the Stimpmeter, which measures green speed. "Better slow grass than no grass" is a mantra among greenkeepers, but the pressure from golfers to keep the greens rolling fast is relentless.
We have raised the mowing height on #6 to aid in its recovery and have roped off the front of the green to divert traffic away from its bottleneck approach.

First Products, AERA-vator Seeder with Long Tines

The extra long tines provide a big enough niche for bent grass seeding and germination even in a good stand of existing poa/bent. Once germination is seen, Velocity can be applied to eliminate poa seedlings and a significant amount of the current poa stand. It would be great to start this process now, especially in areas that were flooded and have little or no live turf.

Dead Poa Renders Opportunity for Bent Grass Establishment

Constant flooding leads to dead turf. It's always hard to see your turf die, but with death, mostly poa annua, comes opportunity to increase our fairway bent grass population. Early to mid August in Wisconsin is an excellent time for interseeding bent grass and getting excellent germination results. Poa that does germinate with the bent can be eradicated with the poa control Velocity. We will first need to vent the soils and relieve compaction with a Toro-ProCore 72 Soil Reliever with solid tines than Seed with

First Products AERA-vator seeder which has over 100 2" spikes on each of its 6 vibrating drums which make excellent niche's in the soil for seed germination. We will test out the process on the Little Links, if approved, we will move on to the fairways.

This brings to mind one of John Wooden's famous quotes, and he had many, "Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." We could not save stressed poa annua but we can seed in more stress tolerant bent grass. Thanks John for the direction, let's get to it!