Green speeds and growth regulators

If you have played in the past 2 weeks, you know the greens have been extremely quick, faster than our usual fast greens rolling 11-12 on the stimpmeter.

When it comes to green speeds there are many factors that are involved in creating a good green that is smooth and fast but still holds a shot.  Height of cut is the obvious one, water and moisture content, fertility level, mowing frequency, type of mower, rolling, and plant growth regulators.  We utilize all of these on a daily basis to create consistent fast greens.

Right now we are seeing the effect of multiple growth regulators on the green.  In the spring we apply 1 regulator to control the Poa Annua from developing a seedhead which would lead to bumpy greens.  In the summer we apply different growth regulators, some times a tank mix of 2, to keep the greens from growing too fast during the day and loosing our speed by the end of the day, along with many other agronomic benefits that the regulators provide.  This time of year there is always that transition from our spring regulator to our summer regulator, and we do not want to allow the greens to come out of regulation because then we will see a flush of growth.  To prevent this, we try to time it where the spring regulator is wearing off and the summer regulator is just starting.  Well right now we have both regulators having an effect on the greens and they are growing very little.  When staff mows greens in the morning they are collecting about 3 handfuls of clippings for every 6 greens mowed, next too nothing.  This is keeping the greens very consistent green to green and day to day, but it is making them faster than what we would normally desire.

Also, if you remember back to some of the blog posts last summer, Test plots, I am using a different regulator for the summer this year because I was not happy with the effects we had last year, so we performed several test plots of different types on the back edges of greens last year to see which one would give us the best effect.

Over the next couple weeks, the spring applied growth regulator will wear off and the greens will return to their normal speed, still fast, only having the new summer regulator on them.  For the mean time, stay below the hole.