MISSISSIPPI TURFGRASS: Barry Stewart, William Stark and Jay McCurdy

It all started with a contest/challenge from Cubico Sustainable Investments. Cubico is a global renewable energy infrastructure company, owning and operating large-scale solar farms. As part of its corporate responsibility program, Cubico created a competition for MSU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) students to design potential agrivoltaic solutions to control vegetation on solar farms with diverse landscapes. William Stark, then a senior Golf and Sports Turf Management major at MSU, led a team of students from Dr. Jay McCurdy’s Turf Weed Management Class in authoring a research proposal that was funded by Cubico. William is now working on this project as part of his master’s degree under the direction of Dr. Barry Stewart. The research will be conducted at the Delta’s Edge Solar Project located in Carroll County near Greenwood, MS.

When completed, the Delta’s Edge site will have a capacity of 100 MW and be the largest solar installation in Mississippi. According to the publication NS Energy, the site will generate enough clean electricity to power 16,400 homes annually. The 652-acre site will be home to approximately 280,000 solar panels.

The focus of the research project will be to select the best grass or mixture of grasses to revegetate the area under the solar panels. This presents a challenge, as the solar panels will produce shade and may also alter how rainfall reaches the ground. However, the site is not totally covered with solar panels, and there is about an eight foot gap between the rows of solar panels. The panels pivot on their stanchions to allow them to follow the sun during the day (Photo 1). So, the grasses used must be able to thrive in full sun and in shade. This is why a mixture of grass species may be superior to a monoculture. The site is next to the Yalobusha River Levee so the grasses must also be tolerant of wet conditions parts of the year and dry conditions in other parts.

For Cubico’s interest the grasses should be low maintenance, as it will be difficult to mow under the panels, and maintenance operations have a potential to damage the panels. The likely mowing height for the site may be about six inches. Grasses that have high fertility requirements also usually have high mowing requirements and may not be well suited for this site.

Some of the grasses being evaluated at Delta’s Edge and our rationale for using them:

Common Carpetgrass (Axonopus fissifolius):

Carpetgrass is a slow-growing, medium green (and sometimes greenish yellow), coarsely textured turfgrass that is adapted to low-maintenance, general-purpose turf. It prefers full sun to moderate shade and performs well in wet, shady, acidic soils where other grasses may not. Carpetgrass looks similar to centipedegrass except that it produces a crabgrass-like seedhead, and centipedegrass has hairs along the edges of the leaves.

When I first came to MSU, and Dr. Goatley took me out to show me some carpetgrass, I thought, “man with a name like carpetgrass this must be one of the best grasses out there.” Then I was told it was a weedy grass at best and often something you wanted to get rid of. Through the years carpetgrass came up here and there. One year at the Golf Course Show Turf Bowl, the centipedegrass samples were actually carpetgrass (this was caught before it was used in the contest). Dr. Gregg Munshaw and Wayne Philley once presented a project to do carpetgrass breeding work to have a low growing native grass for highway right of way. A few years later many homeowners found out that much of their centipedegrass lawns were actually carpetgrass when the Scotts Company changed the active ingredient in Bonus S fertilizer from simazine to metsulfuron. I have encountered some stands of carpetgrass that were well kept and quite attractiv...

NORTH CAROLINA TURFGRASS:

Ask any landscape professional about business; talent is usually the hot topic. Finding qualified and motivated candidates to work in this dynamic industry seems to be half the business battle.

Yet surprisingly, college turfgrass programs are decreasing or folding across the country. Golf Course Management Online estimates a 75% decrease in college turfgrass enrollment since the peak of the 2000s, with three universities pausing or discontinuing their programs completely.

Some turfgrass students may have migrated to community colleges, but high-skilled management positions demanding scientific understanding and decision-making often require greater depth of study. That need remains.

“The demand for turfgrass managers trained in turfgrass culture, pest/weed control, soil science, and irrigation management has grown in the last five years,” said Grady Miller, North Carolina State University turfgrass professor and extension specialist. “And while positions in the golf and sports turf industries are popular for graduates, there are many other turfgrass industries that are looking to hire

our graduates.”

So, as industry demand rises like summer weeds, who will do the work? Recruiting is an ongoing challenge, but many find the field isn’t even on students’ radar.

“I visited three high school classes in the last few months and asked if turfgrass is ever a career path suggested to the students,” Kurt Bland, president of Bland Landscaping, said. “Not one hand went up.”

North Carolina’s population grew 1.3% in 2022 (significantly more in some areas), making it the third fastest-growing state in the U.S., behind Florida and Texas. This business and resident influx is fueling demand for home and corporate landscape maintenance, athletic fields for team sports, as well as recreational golf and public green space.

But with a limited workforce, it’s a rising tide raising boats with short anchor lines.

Here’s What NC State is Doing

North Carolina State University is proud to be the nation’s second-largest turfgrass program offering degrees at all levels: two-year associate, four-year bachelor, as well as master’s and doctoral degrees.

INCREASING TURFGRASS STUDENTS AND ENSURING CAREER PLACEMENT

NC State’s bachelor of science focused on turfgrass is growing. Enrollment has risen from 19 in the fall of 2018 to 34 in the fall of 2023, a 79% increase. But even our graduates see that demand is outpacing supply.

”Recently, we had a graduating senior who received 31 job offers and never put out an application,” said David Crouse, director of undergraduate programs in NC State’s Department of Crop and Soil Sciences. “Needless to say, we are consistently placing 100% of our turfgrass graduates.”

With such strong demand, Crouse says his team is actively recruiting through every avenue, but their reach is limited.

“We attend major high school events, like the annual FFA convention, host students on campus through Spend a Day at State, and communicate with high school teachers and guidance counselors, but we can’t be everywhere. We definitely need help from our alumni and the entire turfgrass industry to spread the word about green career opportunities and the paths to get there.”

Expanding Two-Year Graduate Numbers

NC State’s Agricultural Institute (AGI) offers a two-year Associate of Applied Science degree in turfgrass management. Enrollment dipped in 2020 but recently has been holding steady at around 30 students and is rising.

To improve application and enrollment numbers, AGI’s team is prioritizing in-person recruitment, social media presence and campus visit opportunities. They also added a dedicated recruiter in 2022. Lee Ivy is the director of NC State’s AGI.

“We are working to significantly increase recruitment,

MTC TURF NEWS: Neal Glatt, CSP, ASM

Many leaders seek to hire people who fit their company culture, meaning they choose candidates who share their values, style, or goals. Their theory is that these teams will be more cohesive and aligned to enable performance of key business outcomes. Unfortunately for these leaders, the science shows exactly the opposite is true.

According to a 2015 McKinsey report, diverse management teams are 35% more likely to outperform non-diverse teams in terms of financial performance. One of the reasons for this is that teams which disagree challenge each other to perform at their best. The desire for cohesiveness can in fact limit a team’s ability to obtain performance.

For managers who want to hire the best people, cultural fit may be undermining the entire hiring process. In fact, personality, behavioral, or cultural tests predict on-the-job performance only 20% of the time while giving hiring managers a false sense of security.

One way to know that hiring methods aren’t working to look at the employee turnover rate of an organization. What percentage of employees departed your organization for any reason in the past 12 months? If the answer is 9.2% or higher (the average for all construction companies), then your hiring criteria must be revaluated to outperform the competition.

The best leaders don’t look for a cultural fit, they target candidates who contribute cultural adds. These people have an identity, viewpoint, or experience which is new and unique to a team and brings a new perspective to an organization. Striving for diversity, as opposed to fit, is the best way to build a high-performing team with lower turnover.

A good talent assessment won’t reveal work styles because the best in each role achieve their results in very different ways. Save the personality and behavioral assessments for building self- and others-awareness of new hires and development. In the hiring process, an assessment of the entrepreneurial talent is what’s needed to succeed.

Finally, managers need to revisit how they interview and move to structured formats where each candidate is given the same questions and answers are scored against an objective guide. These questions should also only be around exhibited behavior in previous experiences or hypothetical situations to determine how someone would perform in a given role. When combined, these strategies dramatically reduce hiring bias and increase team talent and diversity.

If you need more help revamping your hiring process to succeed, check out the courses on GrowTheBench.com or contact us for one-on-one coaching.

Neal Glatt is the Managing Partner of GrowTheBench, an online training platform for the green industry. Connect with Neal at www.NealGlatt.com.

ARKANSAS TURFGRASS: Dr. Casey Reynolds, Executive Director TPI

Turfgrass Producers International (TPI) has members who produce and sell turfgrass seed and sod in almost every U.S. state and over 30 countries. As I travel to visit with them, speak at conferences, write magazine articles, etc., I often get to speak with producers first-hand about what they’re experiencing in their local markets. This often includes the good and the bad, and oddly enough no matter where I go, the themes are usually similar. From a farm’s perspective, demand is up; costs are up; labor is short; and where did all the truck drivers go? From a market perspective, consumers and policy-makers increasingly just don’t understand natural grass lawns and their benefits, and in many areas of the country, they are quite literally trying to write them out of new construction, through local ordinances which ban or dis-incentivize the use of grass.

So where does this leave us? In the short run, housing is still quite hot and the demand for grass ebbs and flows with it. In the long run, will the next generation of consumers and home-buyers value or even want lawns, landscapes, natural grass athletic fields, and golf courses? The short answer to that question is that it’s up to us. But let’s revisit that a little later.

Data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development indicates that as of March 2023, purchases of new homes increased for a third consecutive month. Construction of new homes rose in February and sales of existing homes surged after a 12-month decline. The U.S. Census Bureau shows that New Housing Units are still strong, despite a recent drop-off from the post-covid boom (Figure 1). As such, turfgrass producers in most areas of the country including Alabama sod producers, are still reporting strong sales, high demand, and sometimes low inventory.

While this is good news for producers and others in the green industry who rely on lawns, landscapes, sports fields, and golf courses, it is no surprise to anyone that costs are also up. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has some useful tools on its website at https://www.bls.gov. If you’re a data junky, or just a little curious to see it on paper, you can find some helpful charts and graphs that track the costs of goods and services over many years. It should be no spoiler that food, energy, raw materials, transportation, and warehousing are all up when compared to pre-Covid levels. A little good news is that all 2023 Producer Prices Indexes are down when compared to 2021 and 2022.

Like many industries, turfgrass seed and sod producers routinely look for efficiencies to reduce these costs and often find them in new equipment, automation, digitalization, GPS/Remote Sensing technologies, new techniques or practices, and so on. It would be difficult to list them all here, but out of necessity comes innovation and there is always a better way to do things. There are certainly plenty of those opportunities out there just as there are in other segments of the green industry.

Now, let’s change course from a production perspective to a market perspective, which is just as likely to impact the state of our industry. With that in mind, what is the current and future consumer perception of lawns and other green spaces? I suspect many of you have seen recent headlines such as “Kill Your Lawn Before It Kills You”, “American Lawns: Ending the Toxic Yard” and so on. If we need further proof of that, simply Google the phrase “Lawns are” and you can see the top search terms that people are entering into common Google queries. The top hits include Lawns are “bad, stupid, wasteful, colonialism, useless, ecological disaster,” and so on.

While it is easy to sometimes write these off as op-eds, there is definitely consumer research that shows we as an industry should take these seriously.

TENNESSEE TURFGRASS: Neal Glatt, CSP, ASM

Many leaders seek to hire people who fit their company culture, meaning they choose candidates who share their values, style, or goals. Their theory is that these teams will be more cohesive and aligned to enable performance of key business outcomes. Unfortunately for these leaders, the science shows exactly the opposite is true.

According to a 2015 McKinsey report, diverse management teams are 35% more likely to outperform non-diverse teams in terms of financial performance. One of the reasons for this is that teams which disagree challenge each other to perform at their best. The desire for cohesiveness can in fact limit a team’s ability to obtain performance.

For managers who want to hire the best people, cultural fit may be undermining the entire hiring process. In fact, personality, behavioral, or cultural tests predict on-the-job performance only 20% of the time while giving hiring managers a false sense of security.

One way to know that hiring methods aren’t working to look at the employee turnover rate of an organization. What percentage of employees departed your organization for any reason in the past 12 months? If the answer is 9.2% or higher (the average for all construction companies), then your hiring criteria must be revaluated to outperform the competition.

The best leaders don’t look for a cultural fit, they target candidates who contribute cultural adds. These people have an identity, viewpoint, or experience which is new and unique to a team and brings a new perspective to an organization. Striving for diversity, as opposed to fit, is the best way to build a high-performing team with lower turnover.

A good talent assessment won’t reveal work styles because the best in each role achieve their results in very different ways. Save the personality and behavioral assessments for building self- and others-awareness of new hires and development. In the hiring process, an assessment of the entrepreneurial talent is what’s needed to succeed.

Finally, managers need to revisit how they interview and move to structured formats where each candidate is given the same questions and answers are scored against an objective guide. These questions should also only be around exhibited behavior in previous experiences or hypothetical situations to determine how someone would perform in a given role. When combined, these strategies dramatically reduce hiring bias and increase team talent and diversity.

If you need more help revamping your hiring process to succeed, check out the courses on GrowTheBench.com or contact us for one-on-one coaching.

Neal Glatt is the Managing Partner of GrowTheBench, an online training platform for the green industry. Connect with Neal at www.NealGlatt.com.

VIRGINIA TURFGRASS JOURNAL: Brad Jakubowski, Assistant Teaching Professor, Center for Turfgrass Science, Penn State University

Keeping an eye on the weather is something professional turfgrass managers have ingrained into our systems. Can I mow today? We check our phones for the most recent forecast. Should I spray today? We monitor dewpoints, humidity and temperatures. Will I pull the tarp prior to today’s game? We study the weather radar. There is a tremendous amount of weather information out there and nearly all of us have some form of a weather app on our phones, or a link to our favorite weather website, to help us make day-to-day management decisions. Let’s take a journey, to see what is out there and what information will help us make the best weather-based decisions possible.

Which app is the best?

Honestly, there is no one best app. It is important to find an app or a number of apps that provide you the most reliable and quickly available information. Basic Information that is important to have available with the least number of clicks would be: High and Low Temperatures (including overnight lows), Dewpoint, Relative Humidity, and Short-Term Weather forecasts. Intermediate information includes: Radar (Base and Composite Reflectivity), Satellite Imagery, and Severe Weather (especially lightning). Advanced information would be: Echo Tops, Vertically Integrated Liquid, Digital Storm Accumulation and Forecast Discussion.

Basic Information

When looking for basic information, it is best to have most or all important data on the first screen, or within one or two clicks from the first screen. That is often a good way to judge how well your app will benefit you over time. As an example, The National Weather Service includes much of the basic data (Figure 1). At a glance, you can get a good idea of what is happening now and what will happen in the immediate future. High and low temperatures provide a quick mental image of how the day (and night) may influence your maintenance plans. Winds, dewpoint and relative humidity provide a quick insight on irrigation requirements, disease potential, and infield skin management requirements.

It is beneficial to see both relative humidity and dewpoint together. Viewing only either limits your view of the big picture. For example, a relative humidity of 95% with dewpoints near 70 degrees indicate that less time may be spent scouting for wilt and instead used scouting for diseases. The same relative humidity with dewpoints under 30 may indicate a majority of the day may be dedicated for scouting wilt or watering an infield skin.

The Hourly Forecast – The Turf Manager’s Secret Weapon!

The Hourly Forecast on Weather.gov (Figure 2) is the turf manager’s secret weapon. In one image, a turf manager can make plans for multiple issues and tasks. For Example, The Heat Index: potential high heat indexes aids in planning for employee safety; Temperature and Dewpoint: Matched high overnight dewpoints and temperatures means extended leaf wetness and high disease potential. They also indicate heavy dew until at least 8am, which may require a syringe cycle to limit mower clumping, or to make sure greens are whipped post-cut; Wind Speed and Direction (Surface Wind): predicted light southerly winds meaning even higher probability for disease potential and dew, as well as for good spraying conditions in the early morning, but gusts in the teens starting around 11am; Relative Humidity: indicates conditions will be wet early, but dry quickly throughout the day; Sky Cover: indicates it will be partly cloudy throughout the day providing some relief, while Precipitation Potential indicate a 50% chance of rain throughout the day.

Intermediate Information

When making game-time decisions such as tarp pulls, or field evacuations, due to severe weather,

PENNSYLVANIA TURFGRASS:

KAFMO’s annual Field of Distinction award recipients for 2023 are East Pennsboro Area School District, John Gross Field in Enola, PA and Muncy Bank Ballpark at Historic Bowman Field, the home of the Williamsport Crosscutters. Both facilities deserve recognition for their outstanding record of providing safe, playable conditions for their users. Both fields are also successful examples of an increasingly common arrangement: they are maintained by teams of outside contractors. In the Summer installment of Between the Lines, we took a look at Historic Bowman Field, maintained by BrightView Landscapes. John Gross Field at George R. Saxton Jr. Memorial Stadium is under the care of a groundskeeping team from Aramark. We talked with Grounds Project Manager Keith Evans of Aramark about his experience working with the school district.

Aramark is a facilities services provider to client organizations in education, healthcare, business, and leisure. It operates in North America and internationally and is headquartered in Philadelphia, PA. According to their website, Aramark assembles service teams which bring “passion, experience, and local knowledge” to meet the needs of their client organizations.

Keith Evans certainly brings that promise to life on the groundskeeping team at East Pennsboro. He is passionate about his work, has been working in turf management for over 25 years, and has been an active member of KAFMO since its inception. He is on the KAFMO Board of Directors and is currently serving as Board Secretary.

Professional Networks

Evans understands the value of a professional network. “KAFMO has played a huge role in my career,” he says. “I’ve attended every conference since it was established. The education sessions and the ability to network is priceless. They are constantly providing the latest updates in the industry and staying on top of where the industry is going as technology advances. The nice part about KAFMO is someone with the same issues is just a phone call away.”

The same might be said of his Aramark connections. When asked about the pros and cons of the contract service model for turf management, for example, Keith responded in positive terms. “I can tell you that working with a company like Aramark gives school districts access to a vast community of expertise and resources due to the company’s scale.”

Field of Distinction

The Field of Distinction award is the fulfillment of a goal for Keith Evans and his team at the East Pennsboro Area School District: to have a top athletic facility for their programs. John Gross Field, home of the Panthers, is mainly used for football, but it also hosts soccer and band events as well as community events during the season. The field was originally built in the early 1950’s and underwent renovation in 2020 when Hummer Turfgrass Systems installed a sand grid drainage system and a Hunter automatic irrigation system. The field was finished with 90,000 square feet of Kentucky Bluegrass big roll sod on top of the sand capped field. Evans describes the field as “a showcase for a sense of pride in the school district and the community.”

In 2019, the field was renamed in honor of coach and administrator John Gross. The late John H. Gross Jr. had been inducted into the West Shore Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame as a distinguished coach for his many coaching awards, including his undefeated football team in 1959, the Lower Susquehanna Football Championship in 1959, and the Blue Mountain Football Championship in 1962 and 1963. The KAFMO Field of Distinction award constitutes yet another tribute to a respected coach as well as a recognition of the high quality of the field itself.

The grounds team has worked hard to provide a high-level High School field and The Field of Distinction award validates their efforts,

NEW ENGLAND BLADE: Tom Barry, CSFM – Sports Turf Manager, Greens Farms Academy, Westport, CT

INTRODUCTION

Many schools are challenged to maintain safe, uniform, and healthy playing surfaces due to intense playing schedules and repeated traffic. Fraise mowing is a renovation practice that reinvigorates the turfgrass surface and can remove shallow-rooted weeds (Sitko and Rossi, 2019). Schools in towns or states that have banned pesticides on K-8 school grounds, such as in Connecticut, have had to readjust management practices. The use of fraise mowing can be an effective practice in an integrated weed management program for athletic fields, especially where herbicides are restricted or are not allowed.

SITE CONDITIONS

Silt loam, overly compacted soils.

PROBLEM

High weed contamination (70 – 80%) of annual bluegrass (Poa annua L.) and white clover (Trifolium repens) on a heavily trafficked multi-purpose (lacrosse, soccer, flag football) middle and high school athletic field at Greens Farms Academy.

GOALS

• Eliminate a high percentage of the shallow-rooted weeds, including annual bluegrass and white clover.

• Keep the desirable populations of turfgrass species, perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) and Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis) intact.

• Improve soil aeration and drainage.

• Have the field ready for use in late June / early July for summer lacrosse camps.

STEPS TAKEN

• Fraise mowing was performed on the field in mid-May after the conclusion of our spring sports season. We planned for the field to be out-of-play for six weeks to recover from the fraise mowing renovation process.

• The fraise mower was set to 1⁄2″ depth to remove the majority of the shallow rooted weeds, including annual bluegrass and white clover, while keeping the deeper rooted and rhizomatous desirable grasses intact.

• Immediately after the fraise mow process, the field was solid-tine aerated with 3⁄4″ tines, and overseeded with a combination of high-performing perennial ryegrass and Kentucky bluegrass cultivars to establish in the bare areas and to outcompete the germinating weeds.

The fraise mower removes two inches of the turfgrass surface and debris is removed.

• We used a Redexim 1575 disc seeder in two directions with 2 lbs/1000ft2 of Kentucky bluegrass, broadcast perennial ryegrass at 3 lbs/1000ft2, and dragged seed into aeration holes.

• Our grow-in fertility program included a starter fertilizer and a poultry manure product at seeding. Every three weeks post-germination, we sprayed the field with a wetting agent, light N application, and biostimulants.

• Once the overseeding process was completed, we top-dressed with a coarse athletic field sand to help improve soil texture and surface levels of the field, including improved drainage and root development and penetration.

• The field was irrigated with light, frequent irrigation until germination of both species occurred. After germination, the irrigation schedule was reduced, and the duration of each irrigation event increased.

RESULTS

We had great success with reducing both annual bluegrass and white clover populations, but some annual bluegrass did recover (about 10 – 15% following grow-in). We will continue to aerate and top-dress with sand to improve drainage and promote deeper rooted grasses. Clipping removal will be performed when annual bluegrass and clover are in flower. We will also look to fraise mow the field in the future (every three to five years).

WHAT WE LEARNED

The timing of an early spring fraise mow was not ideal, due to the lack of thatch development followed by intense summer annual grassy weed germination (e.g., crabgrass). Late summer-early fall is the best time to fraise mow, if an alternate field is available for sporting events.

Also,

MISSISSIPPI TURFGRASS: Neal Glatt, CSP, ASM

Many leaders seek to hire people who fit their company culture, meaning they choose candidates who share their values, style, or goals. Their theory is that these teams will be more cohesive and aligned to enable performance of key business outcomes. Unfortunately for these leaders, the science shows exactly the opposite is true.

According to a 2015 McKinsey report, diverse management teams are 35% more likely to outperform non-diverse teams in terms of financial performance. One of the reasons for this is that teams which disagree challenge each other to perform at their best. The desire for cohesiveness can in fact limit a team’s ability to obtain performance.

For managers who want to hire the best people, cultural fit may be undermining the entire hiring process. In fact, personality, behavioral, or cultural tests predict on-the-job performance only 20% of the time while giving hiring managers a false sense of security.

One way to know that hiring methods aren’t working to look at the employee turnover rate of an organization. What percentage of employees departed your organization for any reason in the past 12 months? If the answer is 9.2% or higher (the average for all construction companies), then your hiring criteria must be revaluated to outperform the competition.

The best leaders don’t look for a cultural fit, they target candidates who contribute cultural adds. These people have an identity, viewpoint, or experience which is new and unique to a team and brings a new perspective to an organization. Striving for diversity, as opposed to fit, is the best way to build a high-performing team with lower turnover.

A good talent assessment won’t reveal work styles because the best in each role achieve their results in very different ways. Save the personality and behavioral assessments for building self- and others-awareness of new hires and development. In the hiring process, an assessment of the entrepreneurial talent is what’s needed to succeed.

Finally, managers need to revisit how they interview and move to structured formats where each candidate is given the same questions and answers are scored against an objective guide. These questions should also only be around exhibited behavior in previous experiences or hypothetical situations to determine how someone would perform in a given role. When combined, these strategies dramatically reduce hiring bias and increase team talent and diversity.

If you need more help revamping your hiring process to succeed, check out the courses on GrowTheBench.com or contact us for one-on-one coaching.

Neal Glatt is the Managing Partner of GrowTheBench, an online training platform for the green industry. Connect with Neal at www.NealGlatt.com.

ATA TURF TIMES: Brad Jakubowski, Assistant Teaching Professor, Center for Turfgrass Science, Penn State University

Keeping an eye on the weather is something professional turfgrass managers have ingrained into our systems. Can I mow today? We check our phones for the most recent forecast. Should I spray today? We monitor dewpoints, humidity and temperatures. Will I pull the tarp prior to today’s game? We study the weather radar. There is a tremendous amount of weather information out there and nearly all of us have some form of a weather app on our phones, or a link to our favorite weather website, to help us make day-to-day management decisions. Let’s take a journey, to see what is out there and what information will help us make the best weather-based decisions possible.

Which app is the best?

Honestly, there is no one best app. It is important to find an app or a number of apps that provide you the most reliable and quickly available information. Basic Information that is important to have available with the least number of clicks would be: High and Low Temperatures (including overnight lows), Dewpoint, Relative Humidity, and Short-Term Weather forecasts. Intermediate information includes: Radar (Base and Composite Reflectivity), Satellite Imagery, and Severe Weather (especially lightning). Advanced information would be: Echo Tops, Vertically Integrated Liquid, Digital Storm Accumulation and Forecast Discussion.

Basic Information

When looking for basic information, it is best to have most or all important data on the first screen, or within one or two clicks from the first screen. That is often a good way to judge how well your app will benefit you over time. As an example, The National Weather Service includes much of the basic data (Figure 1). At a glance, you can get a good idea of what is happening now and what will happen in the immediate future. High and low temperatures provide a quick mental image of how the day (and night) may influence your maintenance plans. Winds, dewpoint and relative humidity provide a quick insight on irrigation requirements, disease potential, and infield skin management requirements.

It is beneficial to see both relative humidity and dewpoint together. Viewing only either limits your view of the big picture. For example, a relative humidity of 95% with dewpoints near 70 degrees indicate that less time may be spent scouting for wilt and instead used scouting for diseases. The same relative humidity with dewpoints under 30 may indicate a majority of the day may be dedicated for scouting wilt or watering an infield skin.

The Hourly Forecast – The Turf Manager’s Secret Weapon!

The Hourly Forecast on Weather.gov (Figure 2) is the turf manager’s secret weapon. In one image, a turf manager can make plans for multiple issues and tasks. For Example, The Heat Index: potential high heat indexes aids in planning for employee safety; Temperature and Dewpoint: Matched high overnight dewpoints and temperatures means extended leaf wetness and high disease potential. They also indicate heavy dew until at least 8am, which may require a syringe cycle to limit mower clumping, or to make sure greens are whipped post-cut; Wind Speed and Direction (Surface Wind): predicted light southerly winds meaning even higher probability for disease potential and dew, as well as for good spraying conditions in the early morning, but gusts in the teens starting around 11am; Relative Humidity: indicates conditions will be wet early, but dry quickly throughout the day; Sky Cover: indicates it will be partly cloudy throughout the day providing some relief, while Precipitation Potential indicate a 50% chance of rain throughout the day.

Intermediate Information

When making game-time decisions such as tarp pulls, or field evacuations, due to severe weather, radar becomes an important tool.