Traffic Affects

It has been Several years since we began a Bentgrass fairway conversion and for the most part it has been highly successful. The fairways were previously Perennial Ryegrass. The reason we chose to move away from Ryegrass, was to allow us to have a turf more resistant to winter ice damage.

As a whole our Bentgrass populations are near 75% of which varies from fairway to fairway. The fairways with the larger populations of Bentgrass tend to be the larger ones that better spread out the cart traffic. On the other side of the coin, our trouble fairways are the smaller ones such as #7,#9,#10 and to some degree #18. These fairways are smaller and have fewer exit and entry points, therefore cart traffic patterns cannot be easily altered and spread out.

Over the years we have tried additional overseedings on these fairways with limited success, but i am continuing to try different methods of establishment. Now that the heat of summer has finally hit I am hoping to see some of the growth regulation products tilt the scale in the favor of the Bentgrass. These "weaker" fairways will be overseeded again with non invasive techniques and extensive use of PGR's and other herbicides which should allow us to increase our populations on these fairways.

The Ryegrass areas are a darker shade of green and are most easily seen in the morning dew. The Bentgrass hold a much denser dew that has almost a silver shine to it, whereas the Ryegrass just looks like Ryegrass. We also fight smaller populations of Poa Annua in our fairways as well, but to me it is less of a problem than the Ryegrass.

Click on the picture below to see a close up of the dew patterns



When people ask me if i have a Poa problem... my response is no I have a Ryegrass problem.