Today I had to come home early from the North Central Turfgrass Management Educational conference in Fargo, North Dakota. Reasons for leaving aside, it was a great experience with a lot of great information and catching up with the vendors and all their new wares. There was plenty of educational opportunities and I am really honored to be able to meet THE Dr. Vargas from Michigan State.
I haven't seen many large names in the turfgrass industry, but I would be hard pressed to find anyone who challenges your thought of reality and what you have been doing your whole career more than he. Dr. Vargas is not shy when it comes to challenging the mainstream ideas of how turf acts and different ideas of maintenance. I know that I am changing some of my practices this upcoming year in little ways to see what happens when you listen to the Doctor. I had a chance to ask Dr. Vargas about the myth that he de-bunked about applying K in the fall to relieve the over-wintering stress for the plant. He completely changed my view on this subject, and this is the major best management practice that I will be changing next fall. He also talked about only aerifying one time in the spring, and I'm sure there are plenty of you golfers out there that would love to hear that!!!
Dr. Vargas is also a huge supporter of Poa annua. Yes, most courses look at it as a weed, but I managed almost completely Poa greens in northern Arizona for a year and had some decent looking greens. It's not heat that can kill the Poa, its the diseases that come with the heat and dumping too much water on it during those hot periods that can kill it. Also the fact that there are aetenius and annual bluegrass weevils and other little legged things under the turf attacking it during their life cycles. In his lecture about Poa vs. Bentgrass, he also challenged the historical idea of not putting down P, because it was thought to help the Poa seedheads germinate. On the other hand, you can't force the bentgrass to suffer from a Phosphorus deficiency because that in turn will make your bentgrass weak and let the competitive Poa invade. All extremely challenging ideas yet so very true when you stop to think about it.
In his lecture, perception vs. reality, he spoke about how the outside world views the chemicals that we spray on the golf course as being highly toxic and unsafe to be around. This was an amazing lecture and I think should be played on loop in many different golf courses around the nation. His main points, in summation and without trying to paraphrase were that there are certain chemical families that are used both in turf as well as to cure fungal infections in our own bodies!!! Flea and tick miticides for your pets is the same chemical family as the insecticide that we use on some of our turf pests. One of his greatest lines was that when we are taking something to cure a fungus in our body, it's called medicine but when were spraying it on turf, its called a pesticide.
There were many other great lectures by Dr. Barb Corwin, Dr. Jared LeBoldus, Dr. Jim Ross, Dr. Kristina Walker, Kevin Norby, Ron Smith and Sam Reznicek. A huge thanks to all of the speakers and vendors who came to the show, and of course the members for showing their support and being engaged in the lectures.
With the ending of the conference for me, this time of year means the slow ramping up of the golf season followed by the going in every direction all at once approach. This winter has been extremely brutal, not so much with the snow depth, but with the wind and the cold. With the historical average high of around 27 degrees, I don't think we hit that mark enough times to count on just one hand. The weather people say we've been either at or below zero for the day's high temperature 41 times this winter, and that was Minneapolis...
Best of luck keeping warm, wish my well would have followed those instructions!
No comments:
Post a Comment