Test plots

As many of you know, one of my big philosophies is to improve the golf course every single year.  Every season we learn more about the course and try to implement better ways to get better results, and then those new ideas or "tests" that prove positive become part of our annual agronomic plan in the future.  Many of these improvements occur by choosing a few aspects to focus on each year and doing various test plots of different products, techniques, or cultural practices to see what will achieve the results we desire.

This season was no different, as many of you saw my usual blue paint lines and dots on the golf course through out the season. When any new chemical or product comes out on the market I will not use it on the entire course until I have done several different test areas with the product to assure it is going to re-act and respond the way it was advertised.  Our test plots are either to experiment with a new chemistry or try to do something different with an old technique.

Growth regulator test plot on the front of a tee box with various rates

This years test plots through out the course were:
               1)  Wetting agent test on greens
               2)  Soil amendments to increase infiltration
               3)  Different growth regulators on greens, tees, and approaches

Purpose:
              1)  Wetting agents increase the effectiveness of water in the soil, making water wetter, making water more available, improving the holding capacity of soil, improving water distribution, and decreasing localized dry spot. This year we tested 3 wetting agents, our 1 we have used and 2 new ones, applying each of the three to 6 different greens.

Wetting agent being applied

           





  2)  Toward the end of our summer season, our greens start to get "tired", all the hot weather, consecutive days of irrigation water that has "junk" in it, the tremendous amount of traffic from golfers and equipment, and the application of many products.  This leads our greens to start t seal off and not be as receptive to water, and allowing the water to soak down in. We applied 3 different products to 6 different greens each, then at the end of August we went and turned on the irrigation until the green had puddled up to standing water and recorded the time that took

Timing of an irrigation cycle to see how long before reaches this puddle stage

              3)  One aspect I want to improve on is the increase of bentgrass and the decrease of Poa Annua. This will be achieved with growth regulators that "hurt" poa and allow the bentgrass to overtake.  This year we applied 2 different growth regulators at 3 different rates on 3 different parts of the golf course (tees, approaches, and greens)

Growth regulator being applied

Effects of test plot - side view

You can see the three different rates and the different effects of each rate

Test plot in an appraoch - see the amount of bentgrass we have increased so far compared to the poa annua

Conclusion:
Through out the season we received some great results that will help us make decisions in the future on ways to better improve the golf course.