The Turf Zone Podcast

TENNESSEE TURFGRASS: Julie Holt, Managing Editor, Leading Edge Communications

In the midst of a labor shortage that seems like a long-term challenge for the golf and turfgrass industry, it can be hard to find the light at the end of the tunnel. Finding young workers who are willing to do the work, let alone have experience in maintaining a golf course seems like a fool’s errand.

One student in middle Tennessee is blazing a trail for a promising career in the golf industry, and hopefully proving to others with an interest in turfgrass management/golf course operations that the career is within reach.

Dane Gilbert is a golf enthusiast who designed and built a course in his own (and his neighbors’) back yards. He maintains the nine-hole course and hosts an annual two-man scramble. Dane is a 14-year-old 8th grade student at Hickman County Middle School in Centerville, Tennessee. The story of his course, DGC Tallgrass, is one of industry collaboration, community support and a determined young man with a vision.

Start Small

Dane and his father, Brad remember the humble beginnings of DGC Tallgrass way back in 2019.

Dane’s uncle Allen Gilbert gifted Dane a cup and flag so that Dane could get in some practice at home. As part of a golfing family, he’d been swinging a club since he was old enough to hold one, so a backyard practice hole was a natural step. Shortly after he set up his practice hole, covid shut down everything, and Dane got to work.

“During covid, we took Dad’s lawn mower and cut it down like a green. Then as it went on, I got more and more flagsticks and flags and I started planting them in the yard,” Dane shares. “Then I started designing the holes, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger. The neighbors saw what I was doing, and they offered for me to join their land, so I could put holes there.”

In its current state, the course is made up of the Gilberts’ property along with three neighbors. “I can’t say enough how much the neighbors have been generous to let him do what he does on their land. I think they just enjoy watching him do it,” Brad says.

Dane explains how he determined the initial design of the course: “I just took a wedge around the yard and tested different areas as a tee box. I had to see if it had grass first, so if there was an area that had grass and could somewhat hit the green, that would probably be a hole. We would just go around the yard and design how it would be.”

Elevating the Game

Though the initial stage of creating a backyard golf course was complete, Dane didn’t stop there. “We redesigned and found areas that were better for holes. We have one where we hit over a hollow, we have green on the other side so it’s like a hazard hole. I find things that would be better to be advanced, better tee locations, better greens,” Dane says.

While Brad is an avid supporter of Dane and the course, he says that Dane himself does the lion’s share of the work. “Sometimes he’ll get my opinion when he wants to redesign a hole, and I’ll just tell him as a golfer what I think a good shot is. He’s good about taking input about that, then he makes it his own. Every now and then he asks me to cut some limbs or assist with things like that, but he really does 95 percent of this on his own.”

Along with designing and building, a course comes with a serious amount of maintenance. Dane has been the beneficiary of a wealth of knowledge, not to mention tools and equipment, from golf course professionals.

How does an eighth grader acquire the tools of the trade? Dane says, “A family friend (Jim Herron), gifted us an old greens mower, and my uncle helped me fix it up, it’s an old Toro. We’ve got two cup cutters and a lot of cups that are old that were gifted. We have regular lawn mowers and weedeaters. I have a ton of flagsticks.

PENNSYLVANIA TURFGRASS:

Every year at the annual KAFMO Athletic Field Conference in February, KAFMO recognizes sports facilities that have been dedicated to providing safe, playable conditions for their users, regardless of the level of play. The 2023 Field of Distinction awards went to East Pennsboro Area School District, John Gross Field and to the Williamsport Crosscutters, Muncy Bank Ballpark at Historic Bowman Field. We caught up with Cam Richardson, head groundskeeper for the Williamsport Crosscutters, and asked him about the experience. “In the years that I have been working at this facility we have always gotten compliments on the playing surface. It’s always good to hear compliments,” he said, “but recognition by your peers is a great honor!”

MLB STANDARD

Cam has worked for BrightView Landscapes, MLB’s official field consultant, since 2019 after six years of experience in sports turf maintenance in Georgia, Maryland, and New York. He decided to nominate Muncy Bank Ballpark at Historic Bowman Field for recognition following major renovations in 2017 and again in 2020, which brought the second-oldest minor league ballpark in the country up to MLB’s exacting field standards. “The fields always have to be pristine and 100 percent perfect. I knew that was the standard here,” Richardson said, “and I am proud to maintain an MLB-standard field.”

Bowman Field first opened in 1926 and underwent $4 million in upgrades under the guidance of BrightView and MLB ahead of the 2017 season: new seating, bullpens, dugouts and a premium deck along the first base line. MLB also committed to the installation of a Major League playing surface and an irrigation and drainage system. A further renovation in the fall of 2020 consisted of stripping the infield and 30 feet into the back arc to improve the grade of the infield skin to a -.4% slope in order to mitigate drainage issues.

CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS

From 1926 to 2017 Bowman Field was a native soil field. In 2017 it was rebuilt on 100% sand and resodded, first with All Pro Bluegrass sod and then in 2020 with 365SS Bluegrass. Richardson notes that drainage and irrigation have been some of the facility’s biggest challenges. During the 2017 renovation, new drainage pipe which runs to a collector that is looped around the whole field was installed into the gravel sub-grade. A new irrigation system was installed in the field as well. The field was built with a conventional Rainbird system consisting of 13 zones and new Rainbird PEB valves and a new booster pump were installed in the fall of 2019. There are plans to install a VFD in the Spring of 2023 to help limit water hammer on the valves.

BUSY SEASON

Muncy Bank Ballpark at Historic Bowman Field is a dedicated baseball field that hosts players from the MLB Draft League, college, high school, and softball teams. The MLB Draft League consists of amateur players playing to improve their draft status for the MLB draft for the first half of the season, followed by a second team playing independent baseball. But “our most renowned athletes play on the field during the MLB Little League Classic. Last year we hosted the Red Sox and Orioles!” Richardson says with pride. The MLB Little League Classic in August is the facility’s best-known event. Both MLB and BrightView want to make sure that the Little Leaguers have the best experience possible and that includes having a great field for the players to play on. “The MLB standard is held all year round, but we spend extra time and energy in the weeks leading up to the game to make sure everything is perfect,” says Richardson.

Even though the MLB Little League Classic is the highlight, Bowman Field also hosts many other events throughout the year. The Crosscutter’s season runs from June to September with 40 games as well as practices.

ATA TURF TIMES: Dave Han, Ph.D., Auburn University and Alabama Extension

Plant growth regulators (PGRs) have been used for decades in all areas of turf management. The primary reason most turf managers use PGRs is to slow down growth to reduce the frequency of mowing. This is still a prime reason for using PGRs in many situations, including roughs and fairways on golf courses; roadsides and other utility turf; and commercial and home lawns. Sports field managers also mix PGRs with paint to increase the time between re-painting lines of fields. However, PGRs can do far more than simply reduce the need for mowing.

An important use of PGRs is to increase the density of the turf. PGRs do this by both increasing tillering and reducing the internode length on rhizomes and stolons. PGRs are also used to suppress seedhead formation; increase root system length and mass; reduce the need for irrigation; and even favor the growth of one turfgrass species over another (i.e., in a mixed-species putting green). In fact, on putting greens the additional effects of PGRs are the main reason for using them, as most golf courses continue to mow daily even when applying PGRs on a regular schedule. The same is true of some high-profile athletic fields.

When growth regulators were first introduced, they were mostly used on lower-profile turfgrass because of fear of damaging the turf. Many of the earliest growth regulators (and many modern ones) are herbicidal at high rates. Many common herbicides have been used as plant growth regulators, including non-selectives. For example, Roundup Pro has bahiagrass seedhead and vegetative growth suppression on the label. The old saying, “the dose makes the poison” is very true when it comes to PGRs.

Starting from the 1980s, and especially in the 1990s, PGRs came into more widespread use on more intensively managed turf. This was due to the commercial release of PGRs that provided reliable regulation with much less injury. Modern PGRs often target a plant’s ability to produce the hormone, gibberellic acid (GA). Gibberellic acid is an umbrella term for several related chemicals that plants use as hormones to stimulate both cell division and cell elongation. Suppressing GA in turfgrass tends to reduce internode length in stolons and rhizomes, leading to denser turf.

The biochemical pathway plants use to make GA is long, with a number of intermediate steps and chemical reactions. The PGRs that inhibit the plant’s ability to make GA are divided into classes based on whether they inhibit early stages or late stages in the GA-making pathway. Class A PGRs inhibit late in the GA biosynthesis pathway, while Class B PGRs inhibit early. This makes a difference in how they effect plants. Class B PGRs tend to have more universal and longer-lasting effects, as they shut down the entire pathway. Class A PGRs can have more subtle effects, not lasting as long as Class B in most cases. Class A PGRs are also primarily absorbed by the foliage, whereas Class B PGRs are root absorbed.

The primarily foliar absorption of Class A PGRs such as Primo MAXX and its generic equivalents (trinexapac-ethyl) and Aneuw (prohexadione calcium) means that they typically do not produce any regulation of root or rhizome growth. This makes them very useful in situations where only vertical leaf growth suppression is desired. Indeed, often the plant redirects resources to root and rhizome growth when the foliar growth is suppressed by a Class A PGR, leading to increased root mass over non-treated grass. This is a major advantage of the Class A PGRs.

A major disadvantage of Class A PGRs stems from the fact that they inhibit so late in the pathway for making GA. They wear off quickly and tend to have a pronounced “rebound effect,” where growth is faster after the regulation wears off compared to untreated grass.

MTC TURF NEWS: Peter H. Dernoeden, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland

Rough bluegrass (aka Poa trivialis, Poa triv., roughstalk bluegrass) is an extremely common perennial grass weed in lawns and golf courses in the mid-Atlantic. Rough bluegrass looks like Kentucky bluegrass in that leaves have a boat-shaped tip and there are two parallel lines down the middle of upper leaf surfaces. Unlike Kentucky bluegrass, RBG foliage has a yellow-green color. As noted below, however, from late autumn to late winter RBG leaves are darker green and blend into lawns composed of tall fescue and/or Kentucky bluegrass. It is mostly in spring and summer that RBG foliage appears more yellow-green. Hence, RBG often goes unnoticed for long periods, especially when plant numbers and sizes are small.

Rough bluegrass did not become a major problem in turf until the 1980’s. The reason is that RBG was being developed as the answer to growing turf in wet and shaded areas. It was introduced in shady seed mixes, which still exist today, and it can be a contaminant in non-certified seed. Rough bluegrass is now recognized to be an extremely noxious and invasive perennial weed in all cool-season turfs in our region.

Tufts of plants are easily detached or rolled back from lawn surfaces, exposing long (3” to 5” long), white tillers that trail close to the surface (i.e., procumbent). These white tillers behave like runners or stolons, but younger ones do not usually produce roots. Eventually, as one tiller trails over the next, the lower runners root and behave like stolons. The underside of RBG leaves usually is shiny, but this characteristic may or may not be evident. Further, Kentucky bluegrass produces an abundance of seedheads (usually in May); whereas RBG produces few seedheads, usually in late May and June and sometimes sporadically throughout summer. Conversely, the underside of Kentucky bluegrass leaves are not shiny; there are no long, white trailing tillers or stolons, and plants produce an abundance of blue-green seedheads-usually in May. The most reliable distinguishing characteristics of RBG are its yellow-green color in spring and summer and its white trailing tillers. Trailing stems enable one to easily detach tufts or roll back a mass of plants easily, thus exposing rooted stolons underneath the canopy. Rough bluegrass produces far fewer seedheads than Kentucky bluegrass, which appear in late May following the flush of annual bluegrass and Kentucky bluegrass seedheads. Unlike Kentucky Rough bluegrass plants cannot be darkened substantially by applying nitrogen fertilizer or iron. For most homeowners, RBG is highly objectionable, and when summer hits it can become a lawn nightmare. For LCO’s, it is an intractable problem. Rough bluegrass usually is most invasive in shaded and wet areas, but spreads rapidly into sunny areas, including non-irrigated lawns.

What makes RBG so noxious is that its trailing tillers and stolons out-compete the more desirable tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass. I have seen lawns in mixed sun and shade environments to have up to 75% RBG cover. A major problem with RBG is that it rapidly turns brown during very dry periods, even during a spring drought. During summer, when there are heavy rain events, followed by sunny and hot weather, RBG develops a bronzed appearance and abruptly collapses and mats in sunny areas of the lawn.

Matting of shoots is a sure sign that too much water combined with heat was involved in the browning and/or apparent death of RBG. What is difficult to explain to home owners is how heavy rains play a major role in its demise in summer. After all, RBG is highly adapted to wet soils. Very wet soils (including sandy soils) persisting for several days in sunny and hot weather accumulate much more heat than well drained areas. Furthermore, warm water contains very little oxygen.

VIRGINIA TURFGRASS JOURNAL: Chuan Hong, Ph.D., Virginia Tech



Boxwood has been the choice evergreen ornamental shrub in landscape designs for homes, public gardens, parks, golf courses, and other green spaces; they accentuate garden entryways, give structure to garden designs, edge garden beds, divide courtyards, designate parking areas, fill window boxes, and create labyrinths. This preference is attributed to several features of boxwood plants: low maintenance, deer resistance, and high tolerance to heavy pruning, and to lesser extent, to drought and cold conditions.

This iconic landscape plant, however, is now endangered due to an emerging disease – boxwood blight caused by a fungal pathogen (Calonectria pseudonaviculata). This disease wiped out the English boxwood gardens at the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library in 2016, invaded and disfigured historic boxwood plantings at the Tudor Place (October 2018), Longwood Gardens (August 2020), and the Colonial Williamsburg (July 2021). It also decimated many private boxwood gardens like this one that had been the family treasure for generations. There have been several lawsuits filed by highly valuable estate owners against landscaping companies, complaining on introducing the blight pathogen to their properties.

To protect customers and landscaping companies themselves from getting into such legal battles, the first and foremost important step is to learn what a blighted boxwood plant and planting looks like, so proper actions may be taken to mitigate the damages to both customers and landscapers, as well as other property owners in the same neighborhood and area.

Boxwood blight infection may start in the garden and landscape where newly introduced host plants including boxwood, pachysandra and sweet box are placed, or may be at first randomly scattered depending upon the means by which the blight pathogen is introduced to a property then spread locally. If the pathogen is introduced by purchasing and bringing in infected plant materials, then spread by contaminated domestic (e.g., dogs, cats) and wild animals (deer), initial infection and blight symptoms usually start low in the canopy, or at the heights at which contaminated animals most likely come in contact with boxwood plants. If the pathogen is spread by contaminated insects and birds, initial infection and blight symptoms may appear wherever the insects and birds land. If the pathogen originates from a nearby property in the neighborhood, it could be introduced by sharing contaminated garden tools, and/or by contaminated runoff water, shoes and other personal belongings. These additional means of pathogen spread often result in new infection and symptoms in lower portion of the canopy.

Boxwood blight has three diagnostic symptoms: 1) leaf spots and blight, 2) black streaks on young stems and branches, and 3) rapid defoliation.

Leaf symptoms begin as small, light to dark black specks that enlarge into discrete spots or diffuse blotches. The spot centers often become tan with an outer ring of black, necrotic tissue. Alternatively, entire leaves may turn completely gray or black without any discrete spot if the pathogen loads are high, plus an extended period of warm and wet conditions. This often results in leaves falling off plants within a week. Leaf symptoms develop more rapidly on English boxwood and other highly susceptible cultivars than those less susceptible ones such as NewGen Boxwood®, Little Missy. Likewise, symptoms develop more quickly on younger than old leaves.

Black streaks on stems and branches are indicative of an advanced stage of disease development and/or favorable environmental conditions. As shown on the left, multiple black streaks may develop on individual stems and branches, and this is especially apparent on younger stems. Black streaks may have light tan center,

NORTH CAROLINA TURFGRASS: Jay McCurdy Ph.D., Associate Professor, Turfgrass Extension Specialist Department of Plant & Soil Sciences Mississippi State University

Recent, rapid urbanization has driven the development of urban green space in the United States and abroad. The world population has almost doubled since 1970, and more than 80% of U.S. citizens reside in urban areas. As a result, much traditionally rural, agricultural, and wild land has been converted to lawns, parks, sports surfaces, etc. for aesthetics, recreation, and ease of maintenance.

Simultaneously, cities and suburbs are filling with folks who are willing and able to change their habits to fit their belief systems—supporting wildlife conservation, reducing inputs like water and fertilizer, and decreasing fossil fuel use. Those trends will continue, so how can the turf industry meet the needs and demands of an increasingly ecologically and socially conscious society?

Turfgrass has a role to play

Lawns and other grasslands are important in built environments. They offer greater noise and heat abatement than pavement, hardscape, and synthetic landscaping. However, turf does not replicate the cooling and shading effects of tree canopy, nor does it fill the habitat void left after clearing and removing natural environments for communities.

Turf provides erosion control, nutrient infiltration, and a familiar, low-maintenance aesthetic. Historically, one of turf’s main benefits has been line-of-sight for protection and separation from other humans and the wild—think roadside visibility, fire abatement, pest control, and home defense. With time, those practicalities have developed into the quintessential “American lawn.” Urban citizens worldwide recognize grasslands maintained as turfgrass lawns or open green spaces, such as parks, for their recreational and social functions as well as their aesthetics.

Problems arise from reliance upon any one system. Turf often lacks species richness, and many modern management practices are ecologically insensitive. For instance, turfgrass’s role in carbon sequestration is often touted, but the positive effect of sequestration may be nullified by management practices such as the seed, sod, and transport to establish, mowing, pest management, irrigation, and fertilization. The literature suggests that even modestly maintained lawns may be net greenhouse gas emitters. Most importantly, lawn-age limits the peak sequestration—that is, once a lawn reaches a certain age (30 to 70 years old), the carbon released through decay equals that absorbed in growth (Gu et al., 2015; Tidåker et al., 2017). Regardless of the net balance, reducing fertilization and mowing frequency are essential to minimizing environmental harms (Law & Patton, 2017).

Repeated pesticide and fertilizer application, as well as mowing, favors monoculture rather than plant biodiversity, although biodiversity is generally a key indicator of healthy ecosystem function. The detriments of “industrial” monoculture lawns have been much-discussed, but few arguments have focused on suitable alternatives for the typical suburban homeowner. Our collaborations with others in the southeast (see RefugeLawn.com)

promise new plant materials and systems that incorporate forbs for pollinator habitat, but changing a societal norm like monoculture turfgrass is a slow process and will not be for everyone.

What does the future hold?

Lawns are not going away, but how we manage them is changing. New approaches to sustainable lawn and land care will incorporate the following principles:

1 ) Plant material selected for low inputs.

Preempting regulation requires good science, and there’s no better science than appropriate species and variety selection. Evaluation efforts like the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP),

MISSISSIPPI TURFGRASS: Paul Bartley, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Horticulture, Auburn University / Contributing: Jeff Atkinson, Ph.D., Harrell’s and Alex Hedgepath, Auburn University

Since discovering and understanding plant hormones, plant growth regulators (PGRs), both naturally and synthetically derived, have been used to suppress or promote plant growth. Their applications have varied from industry to industry to address varying critical issues. In the 1950s, early adopters like the grape and apple industries primarily used PGRs for blossom and fruit thinning to improve marketable yields. The floriculture industry has used PGRs extensively for half a century to meet the plant specifications of their picky clientele (I’m looking in the mirror here). In the 1970s, utility arborists began applying PGRs commercially to combat the age-old problem of trimming trees away from utility lines. But for the professional landscape operator, PGRs haven’t become mainstream. Instead, their utilization has been more niche.

Take Auburn University’s campus for example. With over 700 acres of landscape to maintain, the use of PGRs is primarily limited to maintenance hazards. “We’d like to start using more PGRs on campus, but right now, we are only using them around fences and barriers that are difficult to mow around,” said Wes Miller from Auburn University Landscape Services. So, why aren’t PGRs more widely used in landscape management? The research convincingly favors their applications regarding enhanced blooming, improved plant health, and less frequent pruning. Like many changes to common practice, market penetration and adoption rates are primarily driven by economics. That is exactly what the research could not demonstrate convincingly. At least, not 10-20 years ago when most of the work was conducted. Things have changed. Today, the value-added proposition is less about economics and more about labor conservation.

With an evaporating labor pool and demand for services at an all-time high, landscapers like Toby Hughes with Auburn Grounds Inc. have begun incorporating PGR products into their management practices. For them, it wasn’t as much about economics as it was about managing labor reallocation and boosting morale. “Our guys hate pruning. It was easy to convince them to spray PGRs instead of picking up the hedge trimmers.” Others, like Dennis Pritchett from JubileeScapes think it’s a “win-win, a game-changer. Our customers receive a healthier plant, and we save three or four crews a summer of pruning. The manufacturers are doing a better job educating and that’s helping us communicate the advantages to our clients.” The manufacturers are noting the change as well. “I’ve had about twice as many requests to present on landscape PGRs this year compared to the last three or four years prior,” Dr. Kyle Briscoe, Senior Technical Development Manager with SePRO, remarked. He added, “I think the labor market is driving a lot of first-time use.”

For those looking for an extra hand, it’s essential to understand the various PGR formulations available in the market and how they might be best utilized.

Granular

It’s challenging to beat the simplicity of a granular application. Measure the application area, weigh the granules, and evenly distribute them across the treatment area. Perhaps this simplicity and our familiarity with granules often lead to misapplications and varying results. You understand if you’ve ever striped a yard following a granular fertilizer application. Timing is critical with this formulation. Depending on several factors (species, plant size, and environmental conditions), granular applied PGRs need time for release, uptake, and translocation to the meristematic regions of the plant. As a general suggestion, these products are best used immediately after pruning.

Foliar Sprays

NEW ENGLAND BLADE — Neal Glatt, GrowTheBench.com

“We have a dilemma” is how one of my employees, ten days into managing her first direct report ever, started the conversation. The issue was that there were some concerns about the work her new employee, who started with the company only ten days previously, had just submitted. It wasn’t that the work was wrong or necessarily bad, but it was certainly a bit different than the typical work we do.

Much to my manager’s credit, she told me that she wanted to give feedback but was concerned about how it would be received. Should she encourage the initiative, excitement, and action of the new employee by accepting the work as it was submitted? Or should she enforce the quality standards of work at our company by correcting the new employee?

In fact, every manager faces this dilemma on the job. How can an employee’s engagement be increased while providing constructive criticism? A manager who picks one or the other usually has mediocre team prone to expensive employee turnover. Yet often trying to pick a middle-of-the-road approach leads to neither objective being realized.

There are three pitfalls managers are subject to which leads to this situation. By taking action, they can avoid the problem and engage high-performing employees who produce great work.

Lack of Training

The reason employees typically don’t perform to the standards expected is because they simply were never taught effectively. Training isn’t something that happens once but rather must be ongoing. The best organizations and teams realize that in a rapidly changing business environment there must be continuous learning from trainers who can add new value.

My first-time manager recognized this issue immediately and told me that while she had trained her new employee on how to technically create the work, she had been planning to have a conversation around the quality and specifics in the coming days. This absolutely explains why the work done wasn’t exactly what had been expected. More training would have prevented the dilemma in the first place.

Lack of Time

Unfortunately, the demand of most workers today is to do more work in less time. For both employees and managers, finding the time to adequately train while meeting all their other daily obligations is difficult. Yet by expecting production too soon, it leads to greater issues than extending deadlines would have. Most managers realize only when it’s too late that by not slowing down, they lose employee engagement and limit the potential of future production forever.

Our new employee was so excited to get started working that my first-time manager gave her the green light to get started. Yet if she had extended more time for the project, she could have easily allowed the new employee to create a draft and meet for a scheduled review discussion where feedback would have been expected and easily received. If those expectations were in place, and the time constraints lifted, she would not have landed in the current predicament.

Lack of Trust

The type of critical feedback that managers often want to deliver is never an issue when their employees trust them implicitly. People greatly care about the intentions of those who give them feedback and these intentions become known from competence, consistency, and character demonstrated throughout a relationship. Managers can build more trust through frequent and transparent conversations which back up consistency between values, intentions, and outcomes.

For my first-time manager, I could deliver a criticism via text with no negative engagement ramifications because there is a high level of trust built over years of working together. But her dilemma was caused because it’s impossible to have this level of confidence in another person after only ten days on the job.

ARKANSAS TURFGRASS

The 2023 ATA Turf Conference was held on January 26th-27th at the Hot Springs Convention Center. This location has proven to be a great place for members from across the state to gather to enjoy education, networking and recognizing leaders in our industry. We had approximately 210 attendees for Thursday’s session and 130 on Friday.

ATA leadership yet again put together a first-class event to support members and grow the industry through education and innovation. Be sure you plan to join us next year!

Benton Parks and Recreation Staff received the Field of the Year Award for CW Lewis.

Over the two-day conference, attendees heard from 13 speakers, and the Trade Show was a great success with 35 vendors.

 

Here is ATA Vice President Josh Landreth’s review of the event:

Huge shout out to our sponsors, our vendors, our speakers, and so many that contributed to the success of the conference. It was great to see so many of you there, smiling, engaged, and full of energy. Attendance was up about 40%, our trade show nearly doubled, and our sponsorships more than tripled. The Friday attendance was the best it has ever been! I heard there was even a cornhole tournament that broke out at the Embassy Thursday night!

Numbers are great, but you can’t put a number on energy. The energy from the 2023 conference was just awesome. If you attended, thank you for being a part of that energy! Thank you Courtney Landreth for helping organize all of this, and we can’t wait to see how that positive momentum carries into 2024.

The ATA exists to serve the turfgrass industry. The success of the 2023 conference puts us in such a better place to do just that. We are now in position to start a scholarship fund. Thanks to the great education schedule that Daniel O’Brien put together, we believe that our future conferences are going to be destinations that speakers look forward to. That will help us build even better educational programs. We have plans in the works of bringing more hands-on learning experiences as well.

 

Courtney and your board of directors have truly worked hard and so well together! It’s really been amazing to watch the entire board jump in to support the efforts of the ATA. Special thanks to our president–Richard Covert, also Kyle Sanders, Guy Oyler, Rodney Fisher, Mark Brown, Ricky Self, Brandon Bradley, Jay Randolph, and Daniel Baxley. There has been so much work that has gone into all of these positive changes. It did not happen by accident, and it could not have happened if not for this group.

 

In the movie Elf, Santa comes back on Christmas morning and announces, “Congratulations on a successful Christmas, now it’s time to start preparations for next Christmas!” That’s how we feel! We have just finished work on the 2023 conference, and we’re already planning for 2024.

 

Spring is here, and all of the turfgrass community is busy, busy, busy. As you go about your daily business, don’t forget about the ATA. Plan ahead for next year’s “Site of the Year Awards”. Reach out to your colleagues to see how they are doing. Continue building relationships with your vendors that want to support you and your business. Thank you for your support at this year’s conference, and we look forward to a successful 2023!

TENNESSEE TURFGRASS: Jay McCurdy Ph.D., Associate Professor, Turfgrass Extension Specialist Department of Plant & Soil Sciences Mississippi State University

Lawns are not going away, but how we manage them is changing.

Recent, rapid urbanization has driven the development of urban green space in the United States and abroad. The world population has almost doubled since 1970, and more than 80% of U.S. citizens reside in urban areas. As a result, much traditionally rural, agricultural, and wild land has been converted to lawns, parks, sports surfaces, etc. for aesthetics, recreation, and ease of maintenance.

Simultaneously, cities and suburbs are filling with folks who are willing and able to change their habits to fit their belief systems—supporting wildlife conservation, reducing inputs like water and fertilizer, and decreasing fossil fuel use. Those trends will continue, so how can the turf industry meet the needs and demands of an increasingly ecologically and socially conscious society?

Turfgrass has a role to play

Lawns and other grasslands are important in built environments. They offer greater noise and heat abatement than pavement, hardscape, and synthetic landscaping. However, turf does not replicate the cooling and shading effects of tree canopy, nor does it fill the habitat void left after clearing and removing natural environments for communities.

Turf provides erosion control, nutrient infiltration, and a familiar, low-maintenance aesthetic. Historically, one of turf’s main benefits has been line-of-sight for protection and separation from other humans and the wild—think roadside visibility, fire abatement, pest control, and home defense. With time, those practicalities have developed into the quintessential “American lawn.” Urban citizens worldwide recognize grasslands maintained as turfgrass lawns or open green spaces, such as parks, for their recreational and social functions as well as their aesthetics.

Problems arise from reliance upon any one system. Turf often lacks species richness, and many modern management practices are ecologically insensitive. For instance, turfgrass’s role in carbon sequestration is often touted, but the positive effect of sequestration may be nullified by management practices such as the seed, sod, and transport to establish, mowing, pest management, irrigation, and fertilization. The literature suggests that even modestly maintained lawns may be net greenhouse gas emitters. Most importantly, lawn-age limits the peak sequestration—that is, once a lawn reaches a certain age (30 to 70 years old), the carbon released through decay equals that absorbed in growth (Gu et al., 2015; Tidåker et al., 2017). Regardless of the net balance, reducing fertilization and mowing frequency are essential to minimizing environmental harms (Law & Patton, 2017).

Repeated pesticide and fertilizer application, as well as mowing, favors monoculture rather than plant biodiversity, although biodiversity is generally a key indicator of healthy ecosystem function. The detriments of “industrial” monoculture lawns have been much-discussed, but few arguments have focused on suitable alternatives for the typical suburban homeowner. Our collaborations with others in the southeast (see RefugeLawn.com)

promise new plant materials and systems that incorporate forbs for pollinator habitat, but changing a societal norm like monoculture turfgrass is a slow process and will not be for everyone.

What does the future hold?

Lawns are not going away, but how we manage them is changing. New approaches to sustainable lawn and land care will incorporate the following principles:

1 ) Plant material selected for low inputs.

Preempting regulation requires good science, and there’s no better science than appropriate species and variety selection.