Sustainable turfgrass management
With over one hundred participants from eleven countries, this year’s international turfgrass field day set a new record. Photo: Lars Sandved Dalen, NIBIO.
At NIBIO’s International Turfgrass Field Day demonstrations of new technology and new variety trials gave participants valuable knowledge about sustainable management of turfgrasses, with a focus on golf courses.
This year’s Field Day was held at Landvik, Grimstad, 280 km southwest of Oslo. More than one hundred people from eleven countries attended the event, which has taken place every other year since 2013.
The theme for this year’s field day was sustainable water management – a very relevant topic following this year’s early summer drought in southern Norway. Thus, there is no doubt that global warming is having an impact on turfgrass water use in the Nordic countries.
Precision irrigation
In the morning session, three invited speakers addressed the enormous challenges facing turfgrass managers in warm and dry regions. Dr. Chase Straw, Associate Professor at Penn State University USA, focused on sustainable solutions for irrigation of golf courses and sports turf. Straw is an expert on precision irrigation and has performed extensive mapping of the variation in soil moisture on golf courses. One of his conclusions was that superintendents’ perceptions of wet and dry areas do not always coincide with the actual drought stress perceived by the grass, and that new technologies such sensors and satellite data offer solutions to fill this gap. Straw mentioned golf courses where water consumption had been reduced by 25 percent by going from blanket irrigation to precision irrigation of fairways. Blanket irrigation is where the entire area receives the same amount of water.
The second speaker was Dr. Trygve S. Aamlid, a Senior Research Scientist at the Norwegian Bioeconomy Research Institute (NIBIO). He presented preliminary results from the STERF and R&A funded projects FAIR WATER and FAIR WATER II. These projects focus on the potential for soil surfactants and new turfgrass mixtures to improve not only drought tolerance, but also recovery ability after drought on fairways and in lawns. Trials are conducted under rain-shelters at NIBIO Landvik in Southern Norway. Aamlid presented examples of surfactants’ ability of increase and level out the variation in soil water content, and results showing superior drought tolerance of tall fescue, sheep fescue and certain cultivars of perennial ryegrass. Aamlid also cautioned that many of the drought tolerant varieties need further testing for winter hardiness before they can be recommended for the Nordic countries.
The third speaker, Dr. Bernd Leinauer from the New Mexico State University, listed several strategies for saving water on golf courses:
- Reduce the area being irrigated (This is already practiced on many Nordic golf courses which do not have irrigation on fairways)
- Use recycled water, brackish water, or other water sources of low quality (The use of brackish water for fairway irrigation on golf course along the Baltic Sea is currently being investigated in FAIR WATER II)
- Reduce evaporation by using drought-tolerant grass species and growth regulators
- Increase irrigation efficiency through optimized planning and more even watering
Dr. Leinauer also made a controversial suggestion to use artificial turf where appropriate, though not everyone agreed to that!
Field walk
After the morning lectures, participants were divided into groups and invited on a field walk at NIBIO Turfgrass Research Center. Twelve different field trials were visited, including:
- Variety testing: SCANTURF, SCANGREEN, and GEVES trials
- Testing of organic fertilizer for grow-in of sand-based greens
- Different sowing times and use of covers for faster establishment of greens at low soil temperatures
- Robotic mowing
- SECOND SUN , testing the use of reflected light to improve turf growth on shaded greens
- Precision spraying of weeds on fairways by the Swiss company Ecorobotix
- FAIR WATER: Improving drought tolerance and recovery after drought on golf course fairways
New research programs and funding opportunities
At the end of the day, Maria Strandberg and Bruno Hedlund, director and chair of Scandinavian Turfgrass and Environment Research Foundation (STERF), presented the foundation’s new research programs in four areas:
- Sustainable use of natural resources in golf course management
- Winter stress and integrated pest management
- New technologies in golf course management
- Multifunctional golf courses and ecosystem services – Landscape perspective
Strandberg and Hedlund emphasized the need for large international research projects and mentioned the three projects recently funded collectively by USGA, R&A and STERF as good examples:
- Alternative strategies for sustainable management of dollar spot (Project leader Paul Koch, University of Wisconsin)
- Pathways to a climate-positive future for golf (Project leader Michael Bekken, NIBIO)
- Leveraging satellite data for water conservation of golf course fairways. (Project leader Qiyu Zhou, North Carolina State University)
Contacts
Scangreen
SCANGREEN is the Scandinavian variety testing program for golf greens cut at 3-5 mm. The program started in 2003 and is led by NIBIO Research Scientist Tatsiana Espevig, with new trials started every fourth year. A complete testing period consists of one seeding year plus three evaluation years. The SCANGREEN testing program is funded 90 % by the Scandinavian Turfgrass and Environment Research Foundation (STERF) and 10 % by variety entrance fees.
SCANGREEN separates the Nordic countries into two trial zones. The northern zone includes Finland, Iceland and the northern, mostly continental parts of Norway and Sweden. The southern zone includes Denmark and southern, mostly coastal parts of Sweden and Norway. Trials sites are Landvik, Norway and Smørum GK, Denmark, in the southern zone and Apelsvoll, Norway and Reykjavik, Iceland, in the northern zone.
The results from the SCANGREEN field trials are used for the list of recommended varieties for greens at www.scanturf.org og www.sterf.org.
Scandinavian Turfgrass and Environment Research Foundation – STERF
STERF is an acronym for the Scandinavian Turfgrass and Environment Research Foundation, an independent research foundation that supports existing and future R&D efforts and delivers ‘ready-to-use’ research results that benefit the golf and turfgrass sector.
Contacts
