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Turfgrasss Management in the Pacific Northwest • July 2009 • Issue 4 |
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IN THIS ISSUE What's Happening at OSU & WSU First Green Program Visits NTA Funded Research Updates The Underappreciated
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Click on the links below for updates from the OSU & WSU turfgrass programs. Mark your calendars for their upcoming events!
First Green Program (White River H.S.) Visits the R.L. Goss Research Facility & Sumner Meadows GC By Amy Roberts, WWGCSA Agriscience students from White River High School in Buckley recently got the opportunity to visit Sumner Meadows Golf Course and the R.L. Goss Turf Farm at WSU-Puyallup as part of the First Green Program. The trip was designed to illustrate the golf industry as an integral part of the turfgrass management field and to show how golf is an environmentally friendly game.
Mark Seman, Superintendent at Sumner Meadows, took the high school students on a tour of his course. They observed the greens, tees and fairways, as well as the equipment required to maintain a golf course. They learned everything from the types of grass species used to how the irrigation system works. Using the golf course as an outdoor classroom, students were able to view every aspect of turf management.
At the R.L. Goss Turf Farm at WSU-Puyallup the students were given a tour of the farm by Dr. Eric Miltner and Richard Bembenek. They saw several National Turfgrass Evaluation Program variety trials and used a dissecting microscope to look at grass species samples, as well as learned about fertilizer research conducted at the Goss Farm
Hopefully as the First Green Program is utilized more and more in Agriscience programs in the Northwest, there will be a larger group of students who will end up in turfgrass programs in college that will one day work in the industry. If nothing else, it creates a wider appreciation of the sport of golf and a better understanding of its impact on our local environment, economy and society. NTA Funded Research Updates from OSU & WSU The NTA’s Turfgrass Universities Research Fund (T.U.R.F.) funds a variety of turfgrass research projects and educational programs each year. Click on the links below for updates on some of the research projects funded by T.U.R.F. Click here to view a complete list of funding for 2009.
The Underappreciated Science of Formation Chemistry By Terry George, Bayer Environmental Science Never before has there been such a high level of interest in the technologies used by manufacturers to produce insect, weed and disease control products for the golf and lawn care industries. Indeed, golf course superintendents are now presented with formulation options that offer the following benefits—all leading to an optimized performance:
Look- A- Like Products Today, one of the key decisions a superintendent must make is “Do I continue to purchase the branded product I have used with confidence for many years or should I consider switching to an as-yet unproven generic alternative?” This question may be further pondered by the superintendent after examining the product labels side-by-side and finding the active ingredient listed for the generic product is essentially the same type and quantity as that listed for the better-known branded product. A final point of perplexity may be found when one visually compares the two formulations to conclude they look much the same and are often sold in similar packaging constructs. Certainly on the surface, one might conclude that the two products are equal. |
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Currently students at White River use their own athletic fields as learning tools—they are entirely responsible for the maintenance and preparation of the baseball and fastpitch fields. Recently they have begun adding aspects of the golf industry to their curriculum. They have begun work on building a golf hole (complete with student designed irrigation system) and have plans to construct a sand bunker.