Friday, January 23, 2015

Dormant Fairway Pre-emergent/Poa Annua Spray

Our winter pre-emergent/winter weed application is taking place this week.  You will notice a little dye on fairways marking these areas. We will be spraying the warm season tees next week and doing some touch up around greens.

Normally the app is done in February but no snowfall and moderating temperatures pushed our decision a little early. You never know when a big snowfall might come and push the application late into winter. We are using a generic glyphosate product called Prosecutor Pro.  The glyphosate kills poa annua that has emerged since last fall.  Poa has become active when temperatures for a few days in a row go into the upper 40's-50's. The effects on the poa will become more visible in about 2-3 weeks if temperatures stay moderate. The plant begins to yellow and then bronze and dies.

The pre-emergent is called Ronstar(Oxidiazon) which is the best product to use on warm season fairways. It protects our turf from crabgrass/goose grass outbreaks. It is pricier than other products that we use on our rough but it does the least harm to rooting and is the best goose grass control product. Our fairways are probably the next most important area of the course besides greens so the extra expense.

We have sprayed and used granular product in our rough from year to year depending upon our work schedule. Prodiamine is the chemical name of the product that we use and probably most of the lawns are treated with in St. Louis.  We use this around our tees, greens, a lap or two around the rough and in our club lawn/highly visible areas of the club. There are areas that are more out of play that we do not treat because they are out of sight/mind and not necessary to be completely clean. Wall to wall applications are not environmentally nor are they fiscally responsible to be applied.

Our total acreage sprayed is a little over 25 acres plus a couple of acres of tees and warm season surround areas.
Yours truly spraying 2 fairway on Wednesday.

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