Maybe you saw this from Jeff Johnson a couple days ago.

He’s not kidding. Ok, maybe he was kidding, but we sure had a great time. Alejandro Reyes, the golf course superintendent at Le Golf National for this week’s Ryder Cup, was kind enough to document our discussions in 2016.

28 September 2016: leaf nutrient analysis, or tissue testing, and #MLSN

29 September 2016: #ClipVol

30 September 2016: disturbance theory, and favoring fescue or bent or poa

1 October 2016: coring, is it really necessary?

2 October 2016: what’s the best paella?

Those were some heavyweight topics. What would I add to that list today, if I had more days to talk with these turf legends?

  • I’d talk about measuring organic matter in the soil, specifically the methods used to collect the samples and then to measure an index of organic matter.
  • I’d invert the #ClipVol discussion for a day, sort of, to talk about how much N it would take, and I think you’d be surprised at how little it is, to generate a given amount of growth.
  • This obviously has implications for organic matter production and its management, but we probably don’t need a whole extra day for that.
  • I’d ask if there were ideas on a way to express all the course maintenance work in a single unit. That is, how can one express all the machines used, hours worked, water pumped, fuel burned, fertilizers applied, etc., in the same unit so that this work can be compared year to year, or place to place, or so that simulations could be done to find what is most likely to happen if certain adjustments would be made?