golf

By Andrew Hollman

When people hear that I work with turfgrass, inevitably the question comes up of “what do you do all winter?” The assumption from some people is that when the weather turns cold and you no longer need to mow your lawn, what else is there to be done? If you are involved with the turf industry, you likely know that there is a myriad of things that need to be done after mowing has stopped and before the ground freezes and the snow arrives. Irrigation needs to be blown out, snow mold fungicides sprayed, and covering greens are a few that come to mind for the golf courses.

By Ryan Schwab

The establishment of no mow areas on golf courses is gaining popularity. In Minnesota, fine fescues are typically the species chosen due to their low-input characteristics. Fine fescues grow slowly, and they generally have low nutrient and water requirements, all of which saves golf course resources. They also may provide the desirable aesthetics of a waving pasture with gold-frosted seed heads, which is quite the contrast from the well-manicured playing surfaces of fairways and greens (Figure 1).

Learn more about our research! A new research article from our group has been published in Landscape and Urban Planning. Brian Horgan, one of the co-authors, is formerly part of our Turfgrass Science group and this work was conducted while he was still at the University of Minnesota.  In this paper, Eric Lonsdorf and co-authors analyzed the ecosystem services contributions of golf courses.

The Turfgrass Science team from the University of Minnesota gave two presentations and presented two posters at this year’s ASA-CSSA-SSSA Virtual Annual Meeting. Below is a listing of the abstracts, along with links to the poster PDF files.

Check out our team’s latest efforts in educating the public about our work!  We have a webinar video and two articles to share.

A video recording, Lawn Care Best Management Practices featuring Shane Evans, from our Watering Wisdom webinar series has been posted.  If you are interested in growing a healthy lawn with less water, please consider watching the other webinar recordings in our series!

Check out our team’s latest efforts in educating the public about our work!  We have two webinar videos and an article to share.

By Gary Deters

When I was a golf course superintendent, I frequently used before and after photos to show progress.  The key, of course, was to remember to take the “before” photo.  I can remember many times wishing I had a particular photo because either I couldn't remember how something looked, or knew that we made progress but wasn't sure how much.  With the smartphone, it has become significantly easier to get that important first photo.  It is nice to be able to look back at my gallery and realize I have a good shot of an area, now I just need the "after" shot.

Rethinking the value of golf using an ecosystem services approach: From the Minneapolis-St. Paul Region to cities in general

There are approximately 16,000 golf courses in the United States spread over many ecoregions and within a large variety of social contexts, from urban to rural, from forest to swamp, grassland to desert.  Economically, golf courses contribute billions of dollars collectively to the economy and create jobs for local communities.  Environmentally, golf courses require inputs of water, nutrients and pesticides and can be expensive to maintain.

By Parker Anderson

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

By Parker Anderson

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

In order to achieve sustainability in the golf industry it is important to create a working definition of sustainable golf around which to frame specific research and recommendations for the industry. As an industry with a wide range of stakeholders and influences, the golf industry requires a holistic definition of sustainability in order to capture the many facets of influence and impact. In this definition the ethics of permaculture are used as guiding parameters for defining sustainable golf.