GCSAA - GCM January 2002 -- Turf Talk




				Our practice tee gets a lot of use and suffers from weed infestations. We're going to renovate it, and I wonder how we can address these problems. By their very nature, practice tees get plenty of use and abuse. The constant wear and tear can destroy the grass that's meant to be there and invite takeover by voracious weeds. The continuous wear means that practice tees require frequent repair in order to remain playable. Dan Pierson, CGCS at Wilmington (Del.) Country Club, says that fighting the weeds and maintaining the ryegrass turf on the practice tee is a constant battle. "Each year it will get worse if you don't control the crabgrass and goose- grass," says Pierson. "This year we had better than 50 percent coverage of mostly goosegrass in August. We are in a true transition area. In July and August we can grow anything they grow in South Florida, but we also have trouble keeping the cool-season grasses healthy." "We've renovated lots of tees in the past. We grew them back with seed, but we didn't sterilize. We just did a regular soil preparation without using any pre-emer-gent product or sterilant," says Pierson. Sterilizing the soil wasn't necessary for the practice tee until this past summer when an early, wet spring combined with summer drought and then extreme heat weakened the turf, providing ideal conditions for the crabgrass and goosegrass. The practice tee complex at Wilmington CC is only about 25,000 square feet and is in constant use throughout the season, so completely shutting it down for renovation was not an option. "We couldn't inconvenience our members," says Pierson. "We renovated the tee in three segments because we had to allow the use of the balance of		the tee as we went along." Pierson's earlier experience with establishing a nursery led him to believe that dazomet (Basamid) was his best choice for sterilization of the area. "Methyl bromide and metam sodium were too expensive and too time-consuming." The project started toward the end of September 2001 when the first section of the tee was prepared for seeding. The existing vegetation was scalped to less than ¹Ž8 inch and aerified aggressively to allow best penetration of the dazomet, which is a granular material. The product was applied with a drop spreader, watered in aggressively, and the soil was kept moist for about a week. At that time, the weeds and grass were beginning to turn yellow and curl, so Pierson stripped the rest of the vegetative material to allow additional aerification and seeding. By the end of November the first two segments of the tee were lush and green, but the last section, which had been seeded too late to germinate properly, had to be sodded with ryegrass. For the coming year, Pierson plans to institute a new regimen of reseeding the practice tee with ryegrass from the time the course reopens in mid-April until late June, when the ryegrass begins to struggle. At that point, he will resod the practice tee with TifSport bermudagrass, which will be playable in seven to 10 days and will carry the tee through the balance of the summer. Ryegrass seed in the divot repair mix will effectively reseed the tee with ryegrass for the following spring. Pierson says he has high hopes for his renovated practice tee. "The real test will come next July when the goosegrass usually takes off," says Pierson. -- Teresa Carson, GCM science editor * * * Contact Teresa Carson, GCM, 1421 Research Park Drive, Lawrence, KS 66049-3859,. Questions are also taken from the members' discussion forum at www.gcsaa.org or are generated by GCM editors.