Collars Cancel The title field is required!

1. Barnett Chad R

   
   8/17/2013 4:08 PM

   At the club I work at we have had a problem the last few years of the inside edge of our collars and the outside edge of the greens dying out. Every year we have to water the edges of our ryegrass collars more than our pen cross greens. We do have a buildup on our collars due to buffalo blowing excess sand off our greens after aerificaton. We havebenaerifying collars without top dressing to try and fix this problem. I'm guessing its some kind of buildup problem on the edge. I originally though maybe traffic but its only on the inside edge. Any suggestions?

   
   
   
   
2. Kyle Fick

   

   4 posts
   
   8/19/2013 11:08 AM

   When you aerate with out adding sand on these collars, add a little greens grade profile to the empty holes. Might help hold a lot more moisture in there. We've had the same issue, and I was going to do this this season, but haven't had the problem. I believe it is due to the heavy native soil pulling the moisture from our collars. We do have bent rather than any other rye in our collars, and they've always been susceptible to LDS. With in inclusion of a wider venting program, and the use of turfscreen for the first season outside of collars, they've been good. But, we were 20 degrees below normal for much of July and early August. Back in to upper 90's, we'll see how tough this grass is!

   
   
   
   
3. Polvino David L

   
   8/21/2013 10:08 AM

   Chad,
   
   I used to have that problem, I don't know if you roll a lot, but I decided to make my transitions on the green instead of the collar, and they have never been better. The greens hold up just fine, and the collars don't cook the second the sun comes out.

   
   
   
   
4. Lucas Palczewski

   

   0 posts
   
   10/15/2013 9:10 AM

   Try a segmented front roller on your greens mower. It works

   
   
   
   
5. Schlagetter David B

   
   10/15/2013 12:10 PM

   If you do any brooming of top dressing sand or brooming at all. Stay completely off of the collars. I've had your problem when the guys aren't careful to stay off of collars. We've gone to pushing a hand broom around the inside edges of greens to brush sand in. This has eliminated our problem on the first little bit of the inside edge of collars..
   
   Dave Schlagetter

   
   
   
   
6. Crawford Mark A

   
   1/9/2017 1:01 PM

   Greetings to all,
   
   We are here in Northern Ohio, wrenching on equipment getting ready for an early spring hopefully. Currently after 20 years, our collars are becoming more and more of an issue. I'd like to find a way to get more bentgrass in them and less poa annua. In the summers we spend too much time managing said poa.
   
   So who likes to inter-seed or aerify and seed? Are there any struggles with the seeding of bent and primo/proxy or other chem applications i should be aware of? We've never attempted this and wonder what people are doing.
   
   Another option is to sod cut some over sized tee boxes and lay that down as well, which i am in favor of!
   
   Thanks for any help

   
   
   
   
7. James Schmid

   

   1 posts
   
   1/9/2017 2:01 PM

   If it was up to me and I had the means I would do sod

   
   
   
   
8. Tim Gravert

   

   0 posts
   
   1/9/2017 3:01 PM

   Do you have bent/poa greens? I have soded collars before to give a contrast from the bent/poa green and to help with health........its nearly impossible to keep the poa out of them. If you do this make sure you get depth down perfect and it will save a ton of time and work. One thing that helped with collar health when I went to a new course was lowering the height and the bent was smoothering the grass underneath. Lowering height and brushing and grooming really helped. Good luck.....collars suck!!!

   
   
   
   
9. Roger Brink

   

   0 posts
   
   1/9/2017 6:01 PM

   Have you considered overseeding with ryegrass. We did that several years ago and the collars do much better. Sure the color's a bit different but we've never had a comment about it. They seem to hold up much better to traffic and wear and tear. Just my 2 cents.

   
   
   
   
10. Chuck Barber

    

    0 posts
    
    1/9/2017 8:01 PM

    What is your HOC? We have gone from .400 to .275 and the improvement in performance is great. I believe your water requirement goes down, the damage from PGR/TGR usage isn't as bad and they are easier to manage.

    
    
    
    
11. Jeremy Hreben

    

    0 posts
    
    1/11/2017 12:01 PM

    We removed our collars!

    
    
    
    
12. Andrew Cross

    

    5 posts
    
    1/11/2017 12:01 PM

    Jeremy Hreben said: We removed our collars!

    
    What is your first cut of rough around greens at?
    We did this with a grow in on one green. Started with no collar, brought collar and it struggled, went to double wide collar, then worked it back to 21" and it does pretty well now.
    
    How do your golfers like the no collars?

    
    
    
    
13. Crawford Mark A

    
    1/12/2017 6:01 AM

    Thank you all for the replies,
    
    Tim, we do have bent/poa greens, over the years the poa on greens has stayed about the same but has increased on collars. Last year some of the poa simply checked out, looked bad and sacrificed playablilty. We spend alot of time hand-watering and babysitting them. I'm looking for a more reliable grass for the next 20 years. Our HOC is at .500 and mowed with a triplex when we mow approaches. It's interesting that your collars performed better at a lower height of cut, What are you mowing at and do you walk mow or triplex them? Collars do suck!
    
    Roger, we haven't thought about using rye but maybe we should. I know there has to be some great ryegrasses that'll tolerate a low hoc and the traffic, we'll look into that
    
    Chuck, it sounds like you like the lower HOC. Nice! We are at .500 bench height. We have an extra triplex mower available to dedicate to collars and will look into that at our course. Are you walking or triplexing? Years ago we walked them and had less problems with them. We could go back to it if we wanted to...
    
    The greens are great where we are and want the collars to be just as good, and we will get there with some new and better maintenance procedures!
    
    Mark

    
    
    
    
14. Chuck Barber

    

    0 posts
    
    1/12/2017 8:01 AM

    We walk mow them in summer and triplex in the shoulder seasons as labor dwindles. We are lucky to have Jacobsen 322 Eclipse triplexes that can use one or two reels down, the other one or two up. That makes keeping collar widths consistent pretty easy. We use Toro 1600's set at .275" for mowing collars and some smaller tees. The eclipses handle approaches and the bigger tees. The eclipses are also set at .275".
    
    Dr. Kreuser with Nebraska indicated the reason for improved collar performance at lower HOC's is because the water requirement goes down with less leaf surface area and there is less leaf surface area to absorb PGR's. His research indicates he can get up to 80% growth suppression on fairway height turf whereas 35% or so is max on greens height turf. He believes there is a critical leaf surface area for PGR absorption for growth suppression. Consequently your collars might be getting nailed with PGR applications relative to greens height turf because it is absorbing more of it. At least I think that's what he said....