TurfComms v-14> u ** May 27,2002 PURPOSE: To pass on what we Jeara willingly and happily to others in the profession so as to improve turf conditions around the country. US MAIL: With the Federal Government irradiating some of the mail to kill possible anthrax spores you don't want to send your nematode or disease samples by U.S. mail. Not that many of you have. Irradiation that is going to kill anthrax spores will probably kill nematodes, fungi, and damage seeds. OAK TREE FOR SOUTHWEST: Ouercus glaucoides. has been named a Texas Superstar plant for 2002. This tree is otherwise known as Texas blue oak, smoky or lacey oak. According to the Avant Gardener pg. 34 the only mail-order source is Heronswood Nursery, Kingston, WA. This is a medium size tree extremely drought and high pH 
tolerant. TEEING SURFACE: In the March/April issue of the USGA Green Section RECORD this year you will find two new formulae for estimating the proper size of tee surfaces including the practice tee. The regular tee formula is a little more complicated than the old formula with two variables that will be more difficult to calculate (z - area damaged per round) and (m - days to full divot recovery). The formula for practice tees has 5 variables. One of those is "m" above; and at least two others will take some study to calculate correctly. They are d - ratio of stall area damaged to over total stall area and x - number of stalls needed per day during peak golfing season. The old formula doubled square footage for shade while the new calculates shade in by the "m" factor. TURFCOMMS is published at unpredictable intervals by the editor and publisher: Douglas T. Hawes, Ph.D. 3517 Deep Valley Trail Certified Professional Agronomist Piano, Texas 75023 Specializing in Golf Course (972) 867-0176 Maintenance Consulting web site <http://www.geocities.com/turfcomms/index.html> e-mail: dhawes@dallas.net Subscription cost is $15. Send checks to Doug Hawes at the above address. The new formula for tees is an improvement over the old but won't gain wide acceptance as it is too complicated. To use it properly you are going to have to go out and find the "m" variable for each tee. Why each tee? Because shade and amount of rounds are going to vary. Rounds will vary/tee because the number of tees we have on a hole vary. I would also liked to have seen in the article a comment on practice tees. Specifically on the need to keep all the practice tee surface on one level for best use of available space. Shade is something architects need to calculate into their formulations when planning amount of tee surface. That is the shade that will be on the tees 20 years down the road. They can't do it with this new formula. What was the old formula? He has part of it on pg. 3. You need 100 sq. ft. of teeing surface per hole per 1000 rounds of golf7year. You should double this on shady tees, par three tees and starting holes. Or in other words, if the first hole is a shady tee on a par three you will need 400 sq. ft. for every 1000 rounds of golf7year. THE LEXUS AND THE OLIVE TREE by Thomas L. Friedman: It was suggested by one of my readers that I read this book. Well that was over a year ago and the book is now three years old. But I'm glad I listened to Dr. Vic Gibeault. The book was well worth reading. However, there is no simple review of this book. It does a good job of helping you understand globalization. The author claims more than once in the book that he is neither for nor against globalization. As he does an excellent job of pointing out you can't stop it so try and understand it. He notes that globalization is brutal. It can and has destroyed world leaders, cultures and nations. At the end of the book he suggests ways of modifying or softening this brutality. He also explains the dangers of the backlash to it. Reading the book will help you understand the present and prepare for the future. YOU owe it to 
yourself and your family to read this book. CREEPING BENTGRASS CULTTVARS: This is a from a recent (5/6/02) posting on DrD's website. He reports, "Al, A2, A4, and G6" basically had no infestation ofPoa annua "A notch down was G2, G4, SRI020, Providence, Southshore and Crenshaw. The highest amount of infestation occurred in Penncross, Lopez, Procup and DF-1. 
These plots were planted at Muirfield Village Golf Club in 1996. The first four are the same first four reported in an Italian study by Mocioni, and Beard, 1998. CREEPING BENTGRASS RESPONSES TO LONG-TERM APPLICATIONS OF NUTRIENTS by Michael Fulton The article with this title was published in the February 2002 issue of Golf Course Management. Back in the early 1990s I went to The Ohio State U. Agric. Tech. Inst, for a job interview with the author. At that time I did see this green and Mr. Fulton discussed research/demonstrations being conducted on it. So when I saw the article I wrote him an email with a few questions. In response he sent me back an email with a 46 page power point presentation. He followed that with another short email for a change in one of the tables. One of my questions was; "The 1.5 inch soil samples appear to measure very different values of soil pH and phosphous but not the more mobile potassium. I assume with different years and different months of sampling you did not care to comment on that? From a research point of few the difference in this case might well be considered due to different years or months of sampling rather than depth. However, as an agronomist who has looked at the value of deep vs. shallow soil sampling for years and done many such comparisons I would say that lower pH and higher phosphorus levels for the year's samples at 1.5 inches is due to sampling depth. Should you doubt that read the article carefully. He notes that phosphorus was not applied until "After the 1996 soil test,..." Thus his 1.5 inch samples show more than double the amount of phosphorus shown in 3 inch deep samples taken 3 years before; yet no phosphorus was applied to these plots in that time. Another question was: "You note that Poa annua was absent from plots where phosphorus was not applied but say little else? Levels elsewhere? He replied with, "There is a table on the power point slides which give the data. It is striking and consistent. I remind people that withholding P to control Poa is old advice, but I don't think anyone would trade for the poor performance of the low P plots. These plots look dead right now (April 1,2002) and won't look good until June." The percentage of annual bluegrass in the low P plots is zero on all three dates shown in that table. On the last two dates it is statistically significantly lower than all but the high nitrogen treatment. There is never more than 12 % Poa annua in any treatment, in the three years of data, all readings are taken in May. OKLAHOMA TURFGRASS FIELD DAY: This event was May 23, 2002, in Stillwater. The neatest thing I saw there was an Air Spade demo. This is one neat tool especially if you already own a protable 150 cu. ft./min. air compressor that can develop 90 psi at the nozzle. I watched it dig a nice slim (2"wide, 4" deep) trench in the drip line of a sycamore without damaging the roots larger than 1/8 inch in diameter. He then dug 
down a foot down to locate a PVC irrigation line. Here the trench was 4" wide. Time to 
dig these trenches without damage to either tree roots or PVC line was very rapid. What 
a great way to find buried wires, control tubes, irrigation pipes, drains, or you name it. Poa annua CONTROL: It appears Syngenta has a new material that will control Poa annua or at least that is what Dr. Bell is reporting in an early study. The product is call Trimmit 2SC applied at 6.4 oz/A spring and fall. They report some yellowing of the bentgrass but no thinning. Poa annua slowly goes out and bentgrass replaces it at putting green height. Stay tuned. GUYMON BERMUDAGRASS: This seeded bermudagrass has been very well received. It is now being replaced by Wrangler which has very similar characteristics ( excellent cold tolerance, very coarse texture). Wrangler is a much better seed producer. DROUGHT/TREES: Anyone who has been through a several years drought will realize the damage many old trees receive under these conditions. In Tree Care Industry June, 2002 is a good article on the subject by Jacqueline Gately. As many of you know, there has been such a long term drought going on along the East Coast. It appears to be easing. Also feeling the effects of long term drought is an area just east of the Rockies. It starts in very West Texas through to Southern California and goes north into Canada. Included in this area is all of N.M., AZ, CO, WY, and MT, plus strips of adjacent states. Symptoms of stress are: small leaves, slow growth, leaves that are yellow, curled, and or marginally scorched. About the time you see such stress, borers and root attacking fungus are moving in. Fertilizing will often add more stress. Mulching and supplemental water will help but, large old trees often are very difficult to save. MOSS CONTROL: The worse invasion of moss I have seen in a putting green was in Colorado. This appears to be a problem more where humidity is high year around. I've seen more moss in northern than southern states. In the May 2002, issue of The Perfect Lie, is an article titled: Controlling Moss in Putting Greens by Tom Cook et al. If you have a moss problem and are a paid subscriber or turf advisory service customer, I would be glad to send you a copy of this four page article. In summary; he reports success with 
Ferrous or Ferric Sulfate, Copper Hydroxide, and Salts of Fatty Acids. There are 
problems with these. He has not had success with Copper Sulfate, Copper Soaps, Zinc Sulfate, Ammonium Sulfate, Dawn Ultra, Daconil Zn & Ultrex, or Terracyte. ISRAEL/PALESTINE: A friend got me curious about the problems between the Jews and the native Palestinians. He suggested I read Exodus by Leon Uris for a historical account of the settling of large numbers of Jews in this area. It is written as a novel but the early history(prior to 1947), although biased, is fairly accurate. After finishing this I 
told him that this text is biased in favor of the Jews; and I would like to read something that presents the other side. He suggested several texts, one of which was The Iron Wall by Avi Shlaim. This text is more difficult reading. I only made it to page 113. It does give information that makes it easier to understand the other side. It does show where early Israeli policy has done much to aggravate the tensions between Jews and the Native Palestinians. A second text was Righteous Victims: A history of the Zionist-Arab Conflict. 1981-1999 by Benny Morris. This, too, is difficult reading. The history presented is more detailed than Exodus and appears to be a reasonably even-handed presentation. I did not make it very far in this text either. Someone else suggested Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour. 
Mr. Chacour, Ph.D. is a Catholic priest born in Palestine in 1939 and raised there as the Jews took over the area. His family was pushed off their land by Israel's army. The story of his life is an easy but troubling read. A fifth item I found very interesting is a brochure: For A Just Peace Between Israelis & Palestinians presented by The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. Any person or persons that can provide a lasting (10 years or more) peace in this area definitely deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Certainly the blame can not be placed on any 
one person or country, and it will take many wise leaders and humble citizens of all the areas countries to achieve a lasting peace. I see little hope. END