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.