March Turf FAQs 2023

Another month down in the calendar, and as I'm writing this it's glorious and sunny outside if not still a little chilly so all feels very positive.

Sycamore seedlings Turf FAQs

Sycamore seedlings

Seen a lot of sycamore tree seedlings out on courses recently.

On twitter the feeling seems to be that its a worst year than usual for this. Not sure I agree that the chemical dormancy has been broken as it got so cold this winter, more likely good moist growing conditions for them to start going.

GDD Calculator

With some pleasant weather attention turns to the Growth Degree Day Calculator and as always there are questions!

Should I start with Primo yet (Yes, if your growing, start low and use GDD to gauge next application)

For example if you’d have sprayed Primo 1st March where I live (Cardiff, Wales) you can see in the graph below we’ve had some good days thrown in there and with 0°C base temperature you’d have reached 222 GDD for the month so would be overdue the next application (generally targeting 200 GDD with 0°C base)

You can pull this data off of our GDD calculator for your site (just copy and paste it in to a spreadsheet if you need to create something like this).

 

If your looking at moving to GDD and still deciding on base temperature, this previous blog may be able to assist: What base temperature to use

Wetting agents penetrant or retentive?

Spring is a time when Evapotranspiration usually begins to outstrip rainfall. We don’t tend to see stress on the grass plant as there tends to be no other stresses around to compound the problem (Heat, High UV, Intense management, High traffic, etc) but the soils are still drying down and although we have no visual stress on occasions we could be reducing our opportunities to develop good root structure.

We are big fans of getting wetting agents down during this period as we often see a healthier plant throughout the summer. I talked earlier in the month about the importance of water management and how important it is to get it right.

Leatherjackets

Glenn offered some industry support this month in the form of an open letter (very swanky), for anyone struggling with the effects of Leatherjackets in turf.

 

Glenn Kirby Open Letter to Golf Committees

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