Asian Turfgrass Center

The growth, nutrient use, and water use of 3 grasses in central Thailand

How did nuan noi zoysia, Tifway 419 bermuda, and salam paspalum grow in this experiment?

Posted on September 25, 2017

There are a variety of grasses used for lawns and sports turf in central Thailand. I gave a presentation last week at the American Society for Horticultural Science annual meeting about the growth of three of those grasses: ‘nuan noi’ manilagrass (Zoysia matrella) ‘Tifway 419’ bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon x C.... [Read More]

Converting grass stolon planting rates from bushels to mass per area

Posted on September 23, 2017

Planting rates for grass stolons are usually described as bushels per acre in the USA, I think. In Thailand, the rates are often described as mass of stolons, i.e. kg/m2. I was at a seminar in Thailand a couple months ago, and a speaker mentioned a planting rate of 800... [Read More]

zoysia
sod

"Percent base saturation seems not to be a particularly useful concept"

Posted on September 16, 2017

I saw a list of proposed topics for an upcoming turfgrass conference, and under the heading of soil fertility was included base saturation. I immediately thought of this paragraph from Murray McBride’s Environmental Chemistry of Soils: If the ill-defined nature of exchangeable acidity were not enough to discourage attempts to... [Read More]

soil
pH

Flipping things around

Instead of looking at how much the grass is growing, think of how much N it takes to produce that amount of growth

Posted on September 15, 2017

One can look at the growth of the grass, as approximated by the clipping volume, in a couple of ways. There’s the quantity of clippings – here’s how much the grass is growing. I think that’s the typical way to look at it. But I find it useful sometimes to... [Read More]

Three distinct ways I've thought about turfgrass management

I find each of these useful depending on the situation

Posted on September 13, 2017

I’ve thought about and described turfgrass management in three different ways. I use all of these, but they are all slightly different, and each is at a different level of abstraction. Modifying the growing environment to create the desired playing surface This is how I described turfgrass management from about... [Read More]