TurfComms V. 15, L8 Sept 8, 2004 PURPOSE: To pass on what we learn willingly and happily to others in the profession so as to improve turf conditions around the country. IRAN: I was wrong when it the last issue I wrote militant Islam is not Iran. Iran is indeed part of those nations that should be labeled militant Islam. U. S. OPEN run like typical C. C. INVITATIONAL: I assume this has been written before but after this year's Open it needs to be written again. The committee running the U.S. Open is much like that running the local club's invitational. It is composed of a lot of amateur people with very big egos who know, they know how to run the tournament and they are not about to listen to their superintendent or, in this case, even the Green Section. Or it is also probable that the U.S.G.A. Green Section staff are so afraid of losing their jobs that they have become a bunch of yes men. Too bad! It appears, cn Saturday, the U.S.G.A. went against its own 'rules' and started watering the 7th green after three of the first four players scored triple bogies. The U.S.G.A. just like your local invitational committee are so proud of their golf course and tournament that they have got to make sure nobody shots too low. The Open should be tough but, walking that edge between tough and unfair and you are going to get burned. From what I have read and seen on tv the U.S.G.A. got burned this year. They need to remember why they created the Green Section in the first place. TURFCOMMS is published at unpredictable intervals by the editor and publisher Douglas T. Hawes, Ph.D. 3517 Deep Valley Trail Assistant Editor, Cynthia Maddox Piano, Texas 75023 e-mail: dhawes@dallas.net (972) 867-0176 web site http ://www. geocities. com/turfcomms/index. html ISLEIB, ROBERTA author of Putt to Death and two other golf related mysterys. I read this one the first of June, have yet to find the other two. I think many superintendents would enjoy it and their wives may love it. The country club where this one takes place is classic. The superintendent, his assistant and the golf professionals are all quite believable. I thought the heroine, a young female touring pro, was just a bit too much. But, over all, the story was a good read for mystery fans. EVAPOTRANSPIRATION: Offers Superintendents More Irrigation Control is the title of a very good and short article in the June 2004 issue of Golfdom. The author, Alan Clark, has done a excellent job of explaining the value of a good weather station in the controls of an automatic irrigation system. Read it, and buy one if you don't have one already. I originally picked this article assuming the author wouldn't get it correct and I could comment on the article and hopefully clarify the situation. No clarification needed. ARSENIC: This element which behaves much like phosphorus has been of interest to me for a long time. I watched Sherwood Moore use it at Winged Foot Golf Club in 1958 to attempt to control Poa annua. I wrote about it extensively in a paper I did during my Bachelor of Science work. Then a fellow graduate student worked with it at Cornell. Because of arsenics ability to control Poa annua, chickweeds and crabgrass, many of the older courses have high concentrations of arsenic in their soils. Also,as you may know, in India and other places, arsenic-tainted aquifers are severely damaging to people's health. A Science News article June 5th issue describes a simple filter that might make irrigation of golf courses possible with arsenic contaminated water. The researchers have found it removes "more than 96 percent of the arsenic from tainted water". The filter consists of two layers: 1) a layer of iron nails, and 2) underneath that a layer of sand. The water must flow through the filter very slowly for it to work correctly. So large filters would be needed for golf courses; but a relatively small filter works for drinking water in India. SILICON: Did you read the article on page 58 of the July Golfdom? If you want to obtain control of diseases without the use of fungicides raising the level of silicon in the plant may be a very valid approach to disease control. How best to do this and how helpful it will be is going to require more research than what is reported here, but it is an area in which I feel both the USGA and GCSAA need to invest some dollars. PAVER COLOR MAKES A DIFFERENCE: Apparently lighter colored paver bricks or blocks for paths and patios are easier on nearby tree roots than dark colored ones. That is, at least, if the research is done in a hot sunny place like College Station, Texas, so reports the July issue of The Avant Gardener. Dark colored pavers result in raised air temperatures above the pavers and reduced roots below. GLACIER NATIONAL PARK: Don't drive here to see the glaciers; they are almost gone. When they started the Park there were over 100. This year they are counting only 37. After having seen various glaciers in Alaska, I would say based on the few I saw, these at Glacier N. P. are very small. The mountains are spectacular in that the glaciers have torn the sides/slopes off. Or, in other words, all that geological debri you normally see on the sides and base of mountains in Colorado has been ripped off by recent glaciers leaving mountains with very dramatic steep sides. We did see in mid-July lots of waterfalls, snow pack, mountain streams, and a fair number of glacier lakes. Saw a flock of big horn sheep close up. A couple of elk close up; two black bears, one of which crossed the road right in front of us the other had been spotted on the side of the road by the car ahead of us. Enough gophers/ground squirrels to keep a superintendent's 22 rifle busy for a month. Although the "Going-to-the-Sun" Road had a lot of traffic, it was not bad compared to trying to drive through Yellowstone 2 years ago. One reason why traffic might have been better for us was that we stayed on the St. Mary (east) side and most people appear to stay on the west side. Also, traveling the "Going-to-the-Sun Road" west in the morning and then east in the afternoon keeps the sun behind you and makes for a more enjoyable trip. The Park has very few roads, but has many hiking trails and tent camping sites. CANADA: Here it is July 21st and I'm sitting in my motor home with the little electric heater going trying to stay warm. I am all the way up at Cold Lake on the Alberta, Saskatchewan border reading in the paper of it being 35 degrees Centigrade in Dallas. It was suppose to be 10 degrees here this A.M. according to the forecast. We have had excellent weather for five of the six days we have been here, like Dallas in early May. I've only played golf once and the rough on that course would have been quite suitable for a U.S. Open; thick 3 to 4 inch bluegrass. The fairways were a little wide and long; the greens smooth but slow! Motorhome parks are more oriented here to camping than motorhomes. Electrical plug ins for only 15 amps are usually available at many sites within the park, water taps are almost always available somewhere in the park, and most parks have a dump station. This one does not. But, almost never do you find full hookups, or 30 and 45 amp hookups. The campgrounds, as you might expect are a lot more reasonable to stay at. 10 days here was less than 5 days in the Glacier Nat. Park area. But, you will have to pay a Loonie or a Twonie for your shower, if and when you take one. The Loonie is the Canadian dollar coin. My wife will probably never forget her first need for a Loonie, I certainly won't. So, what are you waiting for? Come on up! If you come in mid-July the fields of canola in flower are beautiful. Canola is in the mustard family and has lots of pretty yellow flowers on the tops of the plants so that at flowering time the fields are just a solid bright yellow. Canola is raised for the oil that is extracted from the seeds. MICHIGAN: Got here at the end of July after leaving Texas July 4th We traveled through TX, OK, CO, NE, WY, MT, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, ND, MN, Wis. On the way. After 320 miles in Michigan we concluded that the most discourtous drivers we encountered during that trip were here in Michigan. Perhaps it is, in part, because the traffic was heavier here than anywhere else but it seemed Michigan drivers were cutting in front of you and forcing you to brake way too often. Drivers did not get any better in Ontario and Quebec on the way to NH. YOUR TURFGRASS INFORMATION CENTER: Spent another week at East Lansing, Mich, working in the library at MSU trying to get a few of the turf topics updated. I was disappointed to learn that the GCSAA was still not actively supporting this resource for the turf world. I assume this will change as the computer trained younger superintendents take over running this organization. THE END OF OIL: on the edge of a Perilous New World, by Paul Roberts, copyright 2004. If you are not yet convinced that one of the over-riding reasons for the War with Irag was over the control of oil, then this book should convince you. It may also scare the hell out of you. Does he say we are out of oil? No! However, he points out quite clearly that we are no longer increasing the world's known oil reserves and the demand for oil is increasing at a rate that makes it very conceivable that the world can not begin to satisfy this demand with anything less than $40 ph^arrel oil or higher. In other words the days of cheap oil are gone and the end of reasonably priced petroleum products is just around the corner. Coal is still plentiful as is wind and sunlight. Coal is very dirty. Take your choice. Much of the developing world will choose coal as it hasn't money enough to invest in developing the more expensive approaches of converting wind and sunlight to its energy needs. However, the price to the environment and human health of using coal under present technology, is very, very expensive. Natural gas? Yes, this will help in the transition away from oil but only for a while. Hydrogen - fuel cells? No, not in the immediate future. This promising approach to energy needs requires some major technological break-throughs before it is ready for every day use. Nuclear? Too expensive. MEDICAL CARE: As you get older you have a tendency to realize proper medical care is going to make the difference as to whether you live or die in the last twenty years of your life. So it is disturbing to read in U.S. News & World Report, July 12th issue, that none of the 14 honor roll hospitals is anywhere near where you live. If one starts naming neighboring states going out from Texas to find one of these hospitals you find that none of them are in neighboring states. The neighbors to the neighbors, AZ, CO, KS, MO, TN, and MS also do not include any of the 14. Maybe I need to move for health reasons. END