A non-comprehensive list of awesome turfgrass things other people did this year

Here’s a non-comprehensive list for this year. It’s been awesome that turfgrass managers all over the world have found ways to continue to produce excellent turf conditions in a particularly difficult year. I’ve certainly missed lots of awesome things. Please comment, share, and reply about additional ones.

• Online turfgrass field days. I really appreciate the effort put into these by so many universities. What I was able to watch this year was really good. I especially enjoyed the videos from Oregon State University, with Chas Schmid on long-term cultivation and topdressing, Alyssa Cain on irrigation frequency and ET replacement on annual bluegrass, and Clint Mattox with summer notes on winter treatments.

• Clint’s video for the Winfield Academy Prof Talk series was really good, too.

• Speaking of videos, how about Bjarni Hannesson’s generous offer to help with audio issues on turf-related videos? “I will help for free!” he says.

• Also, Bjarni continues his so far quixotic endeavor to understand frost damage.

Can the #turfindustry gather some real money to research frost damage properly? I just opened the course on frozen white greens, and now after the thaw, not a single damage to be seen. Full 4 ball every 10 min since dawn. #isfrostdamageoverrated pic.twitter.com/VRTK65Mwd1

— Bjarni hannesson (@BHannesson) October 20, 2020

• Beth Guertal did an excellent presentation for TurfNet on what turfgrass takes from the soil.

• Andrew McDaniel’s front lawn.

• Frank Rossi continues to share really good content and new ideas. I especially enjoyed his presentation for the ASTMA, his year-in-review for TurfNet, and all the interesting things discussed on his Frankly Speaking show this year.

• How about Ken Benoit’s ride across the United States this year, on his Connect to Protect Tour?

• Ken Benoit and Ken Nice, discussing philosophy of turf management at Bandon Dunes.

• Jason Haines kept on learning, or innovating, and generously sharing with everyone. I especially enjoyed his mower productivity series, and his in-depth look at how surprisingly useful it is to get the growth rate just right.

• Josep Cirera Clotet put together an amazing image of turfgrass winter color near Barcelona.

#Turfgrass #winter #color #wheel.#Pictures taken on #January 15th at @SemillasFitoTG #plots in #Barcelona.#Coolest #week of the #year.
Interesting differences between #warm #season #grasses pic.twitter.com/GJHCoVHyzd

— josep cirera clotet (@josepcirera) January 17, 2020

• Anne Falk Øgaard and Trygve Aamlid’s article on phosphorus requirements for bentgrass establishment and spring growth was published.

• A review article by Emily Bock and Zachary Easton on export of nitrogen and phosphorus from golf courses is an excellent article on this important topic.

• Max Schlossberg and twitterless Nate Leiby are also doing interesting research about P and I look forward to reading more about it.

• Martin Nilsson shared some great photos of deer and of turf conditions this year — he made the slides available for his BTME presentation on Chemical Free Greenkeeping and I think everyone involved in golf will like to scroll through those, if only to see the deer.

• Chris Tritabaugh also keeps trying new things. First sand of the year more than halfway through the year? What!?!

The sand applied with this week’s aerification, is the first bit of sand applied to putting surfaces this season. I used to think regular topdressing was a necessity, I no longer believe it to be true. #hngcturf pic.twitter.com/f120bb2tWi

— Chris Tritabaugh (@ct_turf) August 6, 2020

• Jim Brosnan wrote about Poa annua and some of the exciting work he and graduate students in his lab are doing. It’s Poa365 in his lab, and that post explains why.

• Grad students do much of the important and interesting turfgrass research, and Paige Boyle is especially good at sharing what she and others are doing.

• I also enjoyed the progress of Tyler Carr’s zoysiagrass grow-in. Maybe time for a year-end update?

• Sami Strutt did an excellent job putting together BIGGA’s National Regional Conference—I know from having participated in that. I know for other conferences, and other virtual events put on this year or planned for next year, there has been a lot of excellent work done by many people. I certainly appreciate that when I get to see and learn from wherever I happen to be.

• And to circle back to the online field days, I recently watched the Michigan State University one, and there is a great segment about MLSN & SLAN research by Jackie Guevara.

• Jon Scott is back on Twitter. He’s reliably positive and wise, and I’m glad when someone with so much turfgrass knowledge can contribute.

This list is inspired by Jeff Leek’s non-comprehensive awesome lists from Simply Statistics.