About this podcast
I discuss turfgrass management topics, usually starting with a blog post, sharing supplementary information, stories, and the reasons why I thought the topic was worth writing about, and worth reading about. Thus, a doublecut of these topics. This covers grass selection, playability, and all the work done to create a certain type of turfgrass surface.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 218 episodes
- Measuring green speed, sloped greens, flat spots, and the Brede equation · 14 min · Episode 216The Brede equation takes the harmonic mean of the uphill and downhill directions to give the precise stimpmeter measurement with no overestimation. • The update discussed is…
- El Niño, GvX, stress, percentage change, and weather anomalies · 27 min · Episode 215I answer a question from a listener and describe resources I use when assessing likely effects from an El Niño weather pattern, • The update discussed is…
- More about green firmness, 3 principles, and topdressing once a year · 26 min · Episode 214I go back five years to another video showing ball reaction on greens topdressed once that year. • The post discussed with embedded video, is…
- Following the water: how calcium gets to the root and stays there · 34 min · Episode 213Calcium is an essential element that is almost never required as fertilizer for turfgrass. This episodes explains how mass flow of Ca in the soil water creates an accumulation of…
- No rain, one boar, and 40 years of summer precipitation · 21 min · Episode 212The KBC News TV station did a profile of Keya GC greenkeeper Andrew McDaniel. Watch that (with an English language soundtrack, if necessary) and hear about the driest summer in…
- Phosphorus, rootzone volume, and algae · 28 min · Episode 211I discussed grass responding to P at establishment, but not at maturity, as a function of soil P combined with rootzone volume. Posts discussed are: •…
- When the soil report is not really about extractable vs. available nutrients · 28 min · Episode 210The topic of nutrient availability and extractable vs. exchangeable vs. available nutrients used to come up a lot, and I'm glad I haven't been asked this question as frequently…
- Stressed turf and nutrient supply · 14 min · Episode 209This episode discusses Grime's definition of stress as "external constraints which limit the rate of dry matter production" and how this is related to nutrient…
- What happens to sand particle sizes after topdressing · 19 min · Episode 208I looked at sand particle sizes at the top of putting green rootzones, and compared those particle sizes to what is in the sand topdressing. The average results of this analysis…
- Wet air, summer, and dew point depression · 28 min · Episode 207I looked at the temperatures and dew points for a range of cities around the world during the first month of the most recent meteorological summer. June 2026 in the northern…
- Putting green firmness and surface organic material (OM246) · 26 min · Episode 206The firmness of putting greens varies with the surface organic material. More organic material in the top 2 cm (0.8 inches), and greens are softer. I discuss terminology, the…
- Sand topdressing matched to clipping volume, with Bjarni Hannesson · 47 min · Episode 205I've updated my recommendation for the sand quantity to apply for every unit of clipping volume harvested, if your goal is to keep surface organic material constant. Bjarni and I…
- Post-rain growth flush: 12 mL from water, 8 from mineralized soil N, & 2.5 from N in the rain · 29 min · Episode 204This is about partitioning the growth flush after a rain. What's causing that growth flush? I made some calculations, using New Forest GC in the UK as an example. The increased…
- More air in the soil with frequent irrigation · 32 min · Episode 203It sounds counterintuitive at first, that you can maintain a lower average water content in the soil, and a higher air content in the soil, by applying irrigation every day. Once…
- Why you should know standard sand amounts but not necessarily copy them, with Brian Whitlark · 43 min · Episode 202Brian Whitlark joined me to talk about sand topdressing of putting greens and especially about sand amounts. • The blog post we discussed is…
- Competition, stress, disturbance, species, strategies, and Grime · 32 min · Episode 201High maintenance turf often requires a high disturbance and high stress environment. Grime's CSR theory says there are "no viable strategies" for plants in such an environment. I…
- Downward trend in OM2 and varying sand and N rates by green with T-Jay Creamer · 1 h 3 min · Episode 200T-Jay Creamer is the golf course superintendent at Olympic View Golf Club on Vancouver Island. He's seen a steady decrease in OM2 in response to his N and sand rates, along with…
- Averages, river crossings, fescue, nutrients, spot spraying, and snow mold with Jason Haines · 1 h 3 min · Episode 199Jason Haines is the Links Superintendent at Cabot Cape Breton. We had a wide ranging conversation about blog posts from 2025, a new #MLSN article, controlling snow mold, things…
- Firmness, sand, and zoysiagrass with Stewart Naugler · 55 min · Episode 198Stewart Naugler is the Director of Agronomy at Loraloma in Texas. We talked about zoysiagrass as a golfing surface, playability, and maintenance requirements. We started by…
- Total organic material, soil organic matter, and screens · 20 min · Episode 197Thatch and mat at the top of turfgrass rootzones are removed from soils prior to testing for soil organic matter. Total organic material (OM246) testing is designed to measure…
