This January, like most January's, was a drawn out affair that bumbled by
while I putzed around the shop, the course, the internet, and my
computer. Golf course wise things appear to be O.K. We have as much as 18" snow in some areas and very little in some of the treed areas. The little stint of warm weather and small amount of rain has had no impact on the green surfaces since most have plenty of snow. I would hazard a guess that winter ice wise we are out of the woods and can now start wringing our hands over what type of spring melt we will get.
Like always I spent most of January planning out the year. Decisions are based on past successes and failures and 2015 saw, IMO, more successes than failures. For the most part, successes as of late are defined as decreasing costs with limited negative impact on course presentation. One of last years successes related to fertilizer. Turf nutrition is the one of the larger line items on our budget with just over $5000 spent on fertilizing greens alone this past year. Sounds like lots but take a look at this:
The points on the blue line show we've spent less on fertilizer for the greens each year over the past three years. To be fair that has been the trend for a while now but nothing as dramatic as seen in the last 3 years. With turf nutrition there is always new information being made available and it's up to each person to wade through the information and decide its value. Over the last couple years I've been reading lots about a style of turf nutrition call
Minimum Level for Sustainable Nutrition (MLSN). Explanation of MLSN requires its own post but for this post I'll gloss over the details and attempt to relay the gist of it. MLSN is a type of soil analysis that identifies quantities of nutrients within a soil and then estimates the amount needed to be applied via fertilizer to maintain nutrients at or near a minimum level for healthy turf based on the amount of nitrogen applied throughout a growing season.
I sent away soil samples last year and the recommendations that came back found our soils were not lacking in any of the required nutrients for growing turf. So all I needed to add was nitrogen to allow for uptake of existing soil nutrients and to maintain healthy turf. With respect to the greens, I did not jump in with both feet but I was still fairly true to the MLSN theory and guidelines. Nutrition for the tees, however, was based 100% MLSN. I guess conditions this spring could either push me farther done the MLSN road or make me regret the whole idea. As always, stay tuned.
