Thursday, November 16, 2006 - 8:45 AM
315-5
Winter Traffic Effects on Creeping Bentgrass Seasonal Performance.
Creeping bentgrass is desirable in the transition zone due to year round green color, ball roll, and player expected greens speeds. However, many management challenges exist due to winter weekly and monthly temperature fluctuations. Due to common light frosts in the transition zone, tee times are cancelled or delayed resulting in sunk costs and tension between players and superintendents. In response to this management issue, a research project was initiated at Clemson University from December 1, 2005 to March 1, 2006 to determine if foot traffic or mower traffic was more detrimental to bentgrass winter performance and if winter traffic had any affect on bentgrass quality in the spring and summer months. Although treatments terminated on March 1, 2006, data collection continued throughout spring and summer 2006 to determine any residual effects from winter treatments. Treatments consisted of control (no traffic), foot traffic, and walk behind mower traffic (rolling). Foot traffic included ~75 steps within each plot using SP-4 Saddle Nike golf shoes (spiked sole). A Toro® Greensmaster® 800 walk behind greens mower weighing 203 lbs with a 45.7 cm roller was used for rolling traffic. Collected data included surface and soil temperature, visual turfgrass quality (TQ), shoot production yield, shoot chlorophyll concentration, root total nonstructural carbohydrates (TNC), bulk density, and water infiltration rates. Based on results, both time of traffic and type of traffic significantly influenced bentgrass winter performance. On most TQ rating dates, rolling traffic was more detrimental than foot traffic at 7:00 am. Also, bentgrass discoloration due to foot traffic was less noticeable than rolling traffic at 9:00 am. Rolling traffic significantly reduced bentgrass shoot growth, however, chlorophyll, bulk density, and water infiltration differences were not detected in February.
Recorded presentation