MAKING YOUR GREENS GREENER

Today we are sharing Information on organic
methods for golf courses and composting.


MORE SUPERINTENDANTS TAKING ORGANIC APPROACH
~Course Maintenance
courtesy of :
Doug Saunders (c)



TRUCKEE, Calif. - The interest in organics has increased this year on many fronts other than in the golf industry. The Food and Drug Administration recently announced new guidelines for the labeling of organic products for the marketplace after years of discussion. More organic products are appearing in stores, which increases public awareness about trends in the agricultural industry. More public awareness leads to more concerns on how to best protect our environment.

But for the golf maintenance industry, the talk of organic methods for the golf course is tempered by several factors. Foremost is the desire to present the best possible conditions in order to attract the playing public. Second are the economic factors that have to be weighed as golf course superintendents are continually juggling their budgets in order to satisfy the needs of their golf course and the demands of their course managers.

Can an organic approach satisfy these two primary demands?

Over the last several years more organic fertilizers and products have been introduced to the golf market but the decision to use them is a difficult one for course managers as there is little track record on their effectiveness.

The bottom line in the discussion about the pros and cons of the use of organics on golf courses is that the turf itself knows no difference in nutrients that come from organics or from synthetic methods," explained USGA Green Section agronomist Patrick Gross.

Still, with all of these variables there are golf course superintendents around the country who have made the philosophical commitment to an organic approach to course maintenance. The choice to use organic methods is driven by same desire to develop the healthiest stand of turf possible in order to make the plant more disease resistant. In theory, a healthier plant has less needs for insecticide and herbicide applications.

The big difference in the organic approach is that the primary drive to stimulate healthier turf begins with the concept of doing all that is possible to alter the chemical structure of the soil itself.

"I look at myself as a dirt farmer," explained Mike Kozak of Lahontan Golf Club in Truckee, Calif. "I believe that the neces- sary nutrients for plants are available in every acre of land. My job is to unlock these nutrients from the soil so that they are available to the plant. Synthetic applications go directly to the plant but can have a detrimental effect on soil structure over time."

Around the country some superintendents have begun to look to organic fertilizers as an alternative because of increased environmental concerns. Dave Laurie is the superintendent at Old Brockway Golf Course, an 85-- year-old nine-hole course located near the shoreline of Lake Tahoe, Calif., one of the most scrutinized environmental regions in the nation. The lake's water clarity has become a hot issue in the last 20 years, and Laurie and course owner Lane Lewis decided six years ago to take a more proactive approach to deal with the course's impact on the environment.

"We have undertaken a complete refinement of our facility to control how we affect our ecosystem," said Laurie. "We have developed filtration ponds to capture all of our runoff. We have installed a new irrigation system to reduce our water usage. And we have undertaken a total commitment to an organic fertilization program in order to improve our soil structure."

The commitment is important as it takes years of a concerted effort to realize the benefits of an organic approach. For course manager and owner Lewis, he had to weigh the extra cost with the eventual benefits.

"It is more expensive for us to maintain the course organically and we have to make the golfing public aware of what it is that we do here so that they understand and appreciate our approach," Lewis said. "I feel that over time we will be able to lower our fertilization rates to a point that we will see an economic benefit.

"We have also found golfers who play here regularly because of our no pesticide approach," he continued. "Both Dave and I see this approach as turning back to the roots of course maintenance rather than being on the cutting edge of a new concept."

While these mountain courses have an advantage in that they don't have a large list of pathogens to combat, there are courses in other micro-climates that have begun to find benefits to the use of organic fertilizations. Don Paul, CGCS, at De Laveaga Golf Course in Santa Cruz, Calif., maintains an 18-hole course near the coast where he must deal with such pathogens as dollar spot, yellow spot and snow molds.

"I have been creating an intense IPM program over the years and the use of organic fertilizers is a part of that program," said Paul. "I am going to expand my plan by including compost tea, which I will use to try to increase microbial rates to try to control snow mold, which I deal with during the cold foggy mornings in the winter. I think that the industry is going to make a more pronounced turn to organics in the future. It just seems like the right thing to do for me."



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COMPOST TEA SHOWS PROMISE
courtesy of:
Andrew Overbeck (c)

WOODBURY, NJ. - As more superintendents study organic golf course maintenance practices, compost tea has emerged as viable alternative to a chemical-only approach.

While the compost tea technique has been around for more than a century, today's higher-tech version "brews" compost to create a concentrated "tea" that delivers beneficial microbes and low levels of nutrients to turfgrass.

Evidence at this point is strictly anecdotal, but superintendents using compost tea report less disease pressure, less need for fertilization and irrigation and all-around healthier turf.

Last February, Golf Course News interviewed Woodbury (NJ.) Country Club superintendent Charles Clarke about the results he had gotten after two years of using compost tea. Clarke stuck with his compost tea regimen this year and recorded a third successful season with his "home brew" despite drought conditions and high disease pressure.

"It was a good year with compost tea," said Clarke. "We bought a bigger brewer and we were able to reduce fungicide use again. We only did five curative sprays for dollar spot control on the fairways as opposed to the usual 11 to 12. We also reduced fertilizer on fairways to two pounds of nitrogen.

"On the greens we had no outbreaks, but we did have dollar spot pressure," he continued. "We sprayed curatively and we were able to increase our spray intervals. Overall we reduced fungicide use by 30 percent."
Clark applies five gallons of tea per acre every seven days, but backed off to every 14 days this fall. He had no anthracnose, very little brown patch and pythium and had no algae on his greens.

"I am still tentative with compost tea," said Clarke, "and we are not chemical-free by any means. But we have been able to truly implement an IPM program and I attribute that to the tea."

Seeing Clarke's success, Todd Struse at LuLu Temple Country Club in North Hills, Pa, started a compost tea program this summer.

"We have a real bad anthracnose problem here and it is because of an imbalance in the soil chemistry," he said. "We want to reduce our budget by reducing use of chemicals, nematicides and fertilizers."

Since he is just beginning the program, Struse is applying compost tea at a 35gallon-per-acre rate every week. While it was too soon to see results this season, Struse did benefit from another of Clarke's techniques - topdressing tees with compost during the winter.

"I put down a heavy layer on the tees in January and let it rain in and then blew off the debris," Struse said. "The compost provided enough nutrients so that I didn't have to fertilize them until September."

Clarke topdressed roughs, six tees and two fairways with compost last winter and noticed that it helped combat drought conditions.

"We have a mixture of bluegrass and ryegrass in the roughs and they went dormant later and bounced back earlier. The areas we didn't get to went dormant right off," he said.

Clarke plans to topdress the whole course this year.

COMPOST TEA CATCHING ON?

If compost tea provides at least some benefits, why aren't more superintendents aren't using it? Clarke said the lack of university research is the biggest problem.

"A lot of guys won't accept it until a Rutgers or a Penn State or an NC State says `Yes this is the way to go.' Unfortunately this is a grass-roots thing and there is no one with the money to pay for a study," said Clarke.

"So far, anecdotal evidence is the only way [information on] compost tea gets out there,"



~Gj
it's not easy being green...