The month of May is always a busy month for golf course maintenance in the northern climates. Optimum temperatures along with timely rain usually cause an explosion of growth on our grassed playing surfaces. Our rough mower is usually playing catch-up all month, even when we add an additional mower to the process.
To counter this excessive growth, we use Plant Growth Regulators (PGRs) on greens, tees and fairways. These products cause the plant to slow its top growth and put that energy into roots and lateral growth. This makes for a healthier bentgrass plant and much reduced clippings on the fairways.
The particular PGR we use favors bentgrass while putting the hurt on annual bluegrass (poa annua). We have a substantial population of 'poa' in our playing surfaces that established during grow-in. From an agronomic point of view, it is in our best interests to limit the spread of this weed and, over time, reduce the populations.
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| The yellow grass on one of our tee surfaces is PGR stunted poa annua. |
This spring, we upgraded our Toro 300 gallon sprayer with a GPS computer controller and a higher capacity pump. The golf industry is a little late to the party as the Ag Industry has used GPS technology for many years. How does GPS control improve spray applications on the golf course?
In simplified terms, the GPS controller mounted on the sprayer uses satellites orbiting the Earth to determine its exact (sub-meter accuracy) location on the ground. The margins of the fairways to be sprayed are entered into the computer. This allows the controller to determine what to spray and what not to spray. The sprayer operator simply drives over fairways back and forth and the controller turns the individual boom nozzles on and off as the fairway margins are crossed.
This system saves 10-15% product by eliminating overlaps and over sprays into the rough. In addition, the sprayer can now spray at 8-9 mph, twice as fast as the old system! Isn't technology great?
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| Asst. Superintendent Brett Wenzel at the wheel of the newly upgraded Toro 5700 sprayer. |
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| Nozzles can operate in single or dual mode depending on demand call from the computer. |
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| GPS computer screen shows what has been sprayed (white) and what is unsprayed (green). |
