Spraying the greens

We have approximately 1 acre of bentgrass putting greens.  For chemical applications, read the label for the product/acre.  Mix this rate into 75 gallons of water.  If adding water with the fire hose, I will fill the tank with water up to the two pieces of tape.  One in the front of the tank and a second in the rear of the tank.

I will need to add fertilizer and any dry products to the tank first to allow for dissolving into solution.  Add any other liquid fertilizers, and then the remaining chemicals.

Fertilizer is applied every other week with Urea or Ammonium nitrate + Potassium nitrate.  For urea to be applied at 0.2 lb/1,000 ft^2, you have to add 17 lbs of product.  AN (10 lbs fert) and PN (30 lb fert) are applied together at a rate of 0.1 lb/1,000 ft^2.

(Rate that you want to apply / % Nitrogen)*43.56 = lb of fertilizer/Acre. 
Better for me to miss on the low side than high side when adding fertilizer

Primo is applied monthly at a rate of 6 oz/A.  At this rate, I would not be able to spray the bermudagrass portion of the big green.  If Primo is applied at 3 oz/A, I can spray the bermudagrass.

Wetting agent is applied monthly opposite primo application.  Wetting agents require watering in following application, whereas Primo does not need to be watered in following application.  I will have to be careful and completely understand where I can apply these wetting agents.

Running the Sprayer

Once the water is in the sprayer, you want to turn up the RPM's to approximately 25 using the lever on the far left.  Once agitating, I will add the fertilizer and other products to the tank.  Allow all products to agitate for a short period of time to ensure complete mixture.

Drive to Southwest corner of big green (My SR1020 plots). The length of the boom is approximately 7 steps from one end to the other.  First flag is placed at the back foot following 4 steps.  Subsequent flags are placed 7 steps from flag to flag.  Same process occurs on opposite side of green.  For the NTEP Green, first pass is centered on the fringe and green on the Northeast side.  First flag would go 7 paces from the Northeast Corner, and subsequent flags 7 paces past previous flag.  If we are not spraying John's StressGuard study, first flag would be at the back foot on the 4th pace.  7 steps for other flags.

When preparing to spray the green, I need to drive the sprayer in 3rd gear LOW.  If the sprayer doesn't want to go into low gear, put sprayer in reverse, release some on clutch, while pressing lever to low.  The sprayer should click into low at that point.  Shift back to 3rd gear and begin spraying.  Drive from flag to flag keeping the flags in the center of the sprayer.  I will need to keep the RPM's of the sprayer between 30 and 35.

Pressure for the sprayer should be 32 psi.  Check the pressure when lining up for first pass.  In the event that pressure needs to be adjusted, use the toggle switch on the spray control panel to click up or down depending on direction desired.  Pressure may begin to drop when tank begins to get low.  Keep an eye on the pressure when we are nearing empty on the tank.

This should be all the information I will need to be capable of spraying the putting greens every other week.

Carb Analysis: Sample Processing

Yesterday, we began the process of transferring samples from the aluminum foil to coin envelopes in preparation for drying and grinding. We are basically just removing the contents from the foil and placing it in the coin envelopes. To try and avoid the freeze/thaw effect prior to drying, we are pulling out small numbers of samples at a time and placing filled coin envelopes back in the freezer until we have enough to place them in the dryer.

I have set the drying oven to approximately 90 degrees C. I will likely put the first set of samples in the drying oven today. I plan on getting some basic weight data from the samples prior to putting them in the oven, and then periodically over time to obtain a good estimate of time the samples should be in the oven. I suspect that the root and crown material will take the longest to become completely dry, and I am guessing it will take approximately 48 hours to completely dry the samples.

Ball mark severity camera settings

The settings for taking ball mark severity pictures are exposure time of 1/250 and F4.5 with iso at 100. Pictures for ball mark severity will be taken with John's old camera using these settings. It is very important to make sure the camera is secure in the frame and the velcro is firmly stretched across the camera to avoid camera movement. Also important to make sure the camera is zoomed in on the ball to minimize the potential of having the picture expose light beyond the frame. If the pictures appear to have light coming in from the sides, the edit macro can be run in SigmaScan to crop the side of the images resulting in only ball and frame in images to be analyzed.

Camera settings for Cover and Color analysis

I will continue to take pictures with the older camera on my plots for Cover and Color analysis to remain consistent with last years data. Although they may not be able to be analyzed together from year to year, I can at least make observations on the data if I use the same settings from collection date to collection date.

I never wrote down the settings previously, so I wanted to write them in here to have them for future reference. The F-stop 2.8, shutter speed is 1/50, an dthe iso is 100. These settings are only appropriate for using John's old camera with the light box and fluorescent lights. The camera also has to be in the manual mode to take these pictures.

Digital Image Analysis and Camera Settings

Dr. Karcher explained some of the camera technology to me this week for me to better understand the camera settings. The F-stop or Shutter speed basically is a number that determines how long the camera is open or exposed to light. (1/80 would be 1/80 seconds). If you were taking pictures of something in motion, you would need to have a very small number to avoid blurriness of the object in motion. The aperture is the diameter opening of the camera in millimeters. The larger the aperture, the more light will be let into the camera. Both of these factors seem to be determining the amount of light allowed to be exposed to the camera during the picture. The ISO was an important term when using regular film, but Dr. Karcher did not know the true difference in ISO's on digital cameras. Higher ISO film was designed for higher quality pictures.

Dr. Karcher explained this information to me because I needed to find the most appropriate settings for the new camera combined with new LED lit light box. The first step was to set up a custom white balance. I placed a grey card (colorless object) under the light box with the camera attached. The grey card had a blue coloration to it, but once you push the menu button in the custom white balance setting, the camera corrects for the lighting and you see a grey card.

Once we had gotten the white balance adjusted for the LED lights, I took some pictures with the light box on the green using the "P" setting on the camera with the custom white balance I had just saved. This camera option basically takes pictures with what the camera feels are the most appropriate F-stop, aperture, and ISO, which you can view following the picture. The most common settings that come up under those conditions were selected as the most appropriate and saved to the camera.

This was an interesting lesson. The pictures taken with the settings selected by the camera with the new white balance setting were extremely clear and really different from the original images I collected. This was a great learning experience to determine the process of selecting the correct camera settings for different situations in DIA.

Granular Fertilizer application

Last week, Dan made the first application of Primo on Thursday. We have also been experiencing a spell of extremely cold weather. Either due to the cooler weather or bronzing from the primo application, the plots were growing extremely slowly. The SR 1020 plots especially seem to be a bit chlorotic and just lacking the overall health that would be desired at this time of year.

For this reason, I applied a greens grade fertilizer at a rate of 0.26 lb N/1000 ft2. I am hoping this shot of fast release Nitrogen will accelerate the growth of the plots and lead to healthier turf prior to the implementation of further treatments and heat stress. The weather for the end of the week looks like it may be more conducive for bentgrass growth, so hopefully the fertilizer and better weather will get the grass growing again.

Another year begins

I began mowing my plots the beginning of last week on Tuesday, May 2, 2011. After three days of mowing the entire area with the walk-mower, I began mowing individual plots on Thursday morning. I am currently mowing the lowest plots at 0.107. A bit of a warm spell bit us over the last few days. This warm weather had a pretty bad effect on the SR 1020 plots. Surprisingly, the main plots that were affected were those mowed at 0.156 and 0.125 moreso than those mowed at the lowest mowing height. I still have lots of trouble with the far east side of the green drying out a lot. This morning I went ahead and handwatered the plots that looked to have had some injury from the heat. Prior to mowing this morning, those areas were evident with the lack of dew production in those areas compared to healthier looking areas. Cooler weather and some thunderstorms are supposed to be coming in this evening. I am hoping this will help the plots recover so I can get baseline data on my research plots in the coming weeks.