The Fairways, approaches and greens have been but under regulation to minimize the amount of seed head produced by Annual Bluegrass "poa" plants. The Tees have not been treated the last few years, with the idea that the seeds help out in divot recovery in the heavily played areas. The short play areas at Forest Lake consist of a large quantity of poa, mixed with bent grass and some rye grass on fairways and tees. The poa this time of year produces stalky seed heads (shown in the second rough cut above), which will create a bumpy greens surface as well as make it very tough to achieve a quality mowing cut. Although we would love to completely control the seed production, generally 80% control is very successful.
This year we used 2 different products to control seed heads. Both are very effective at achieving control which is a definite plus, as well as both slow down the growth of turf.
Our fairways were treated this year with Embark ( photo on #7 fairway above right). The appearance to these fairways has a yellow green color with speckles of darker greens which are grass varieties such as rye grass which are not effected. This product is also very harsh on rough grass varieties so the application stopped before the edges of the fairway where you can now notice significant seed. The upside to this product is that it is inexpensive.
The greens, approaches, and 10 fairway ( shown above left ) were treated with Proxy / Primo. The obvious upside is a greener plant, even though there is a some color loss, and it is a much safer product on the rough grass surrounding greens. This product combination has a significant increase increase in cost.
All of the treated turf will come out of regulation in the next couple weeks.
