golf

By Gary Deters

Are you a golf superintendent who has been affected by winter stress injury?  We are seeking assistance from golf course superintendents on a research project (WinterTurf) focused on understanding winter stresses of turfgrass so that we can develop easy-to-implement solutions for turfgrass managers in cold climates. For this to be successful, we need to enlist the help of hundreds of golf courses located in cold climates throughout the world.

Check out our team’s latest efforts in educating the public about our work!  We have a video, an upcoming Minnesota legislature address and three articles.

Water Irrigation Audit - a video from the city of Woodbury, MN features Dan Sandor demonstrating how to conduct an irrigation audit on a home lawn.

Chase Straw will be addressing members of the Minnesota legislature on October 17, 2019 advocating for benefits to golf course superintendents who implement water conservation strategies.

By Chase Straw and Jack MacKenzie

By Ryan Schwab

Water-repellent soils are one of the challenges faced by golf course superintendents. This phenomenon can cause localized dry spots (Figure 1), which are areas of wilted turfgrass struggling from a rootzone with poor water infiltration, poor water retention, and non-uniform flow of water among other important soil characteristics. The potential or severity of soil water repellency may increase once the soil dries down to a specific level.

Check out our team’s latest efforts in educating the public about our work!  We have three articles, several podcasts and two public outreach events.

Brian Horgan, Eric Lonsdorf, Chris Nootenboom and Ben Janke wrote The Value of a Golf Course for the Department of Horticultural Science Spring/Summer 2018 Horticulture Newsletter.

By Dominic Petrella

By Ryan Schwab

The University of Minnesota Turfgrass Science Team has partnered with the Minnesota Golf Course Superintendents Association (MGCSA) to perform on-site research determined by the members themselves. As part of this project, we conducted a study at Centerbrook Golf Course. We examined the following research question: Can a surfactant with the right chemistry also function as a wetting agent to combat wilt from dry spots?

Water repellency of turf can lead to localized dry spots and can cause waste of irrigation water.  Not only that, it also can cause the turf to repel other products, such as pesticides, that after application need to reach the root zone of turfgrasses to be effective.  Wetting agents are surfactants used to increase water penetration.