[font family=”impact,chicago” size=”36″ color=”157801″ textshadow=”6″ alignment=”left” weight=”bold” style=”normal” lineheight=”110″]Golf New Year’s Resolutions[/font]

Does any superintendent’s New Year’s resolutions include any of the following: irrigate less, use fewer fertilizers, use fewer chemicals, stay under budget, or spend more time with the family? Including high quality compost into your maintenance program may help you achieve one or even all of these goals.

While compost use on golf courses is nothing new, low-tech compost has been overlooked in modern times in favor of easier to use pesticides and fertilizers.

Sand-based greens are the predominant green used in the golf industry today mainly for two reasons, playability and drainage. In using straight sand topdressing in the quest for playability and drainage, superintendents have disregarded many of the basic tenets of soil and plant health.

Let’s start with irrigation.

We all know that sand drains wonderfully and resists compaction. But let’s face it, we used millions of gallons of water to keep turfgrass alive in the drought of 2002. It is our responsibility as stewards of both the land and the game of golf to cut back on water usage if at all possible.

While it takes the addition of 50% or more of sand to soil before seeing any of sand’s benefits (water infiltration, less compaction), the addition of as little as 5-10% compost to sand will generate benefits in water retention because compost holds many times its weight in water. Adding 10-20% compost to a sand topdressing can save on water usage over time.

The same compost and sand topdressing will also assist the turf manager in reducing fertilizer use. For years the turf industry has known that more organic matter in the soil directly corresponds with increased nutrient retention. Over time compost will increase organic matter in the soil. This alone can reduce the frequency and amount of fertilizer used.

The other added feature of compost is the increase in number and activity of soil microorganisms. This microbial activity reaches a frenzy when high quality compost is used.

Soil organisms process and mineralize soil nutrients in an incredibly efficient fashion, making them more available to the turf, and the organisms can release the nutrients in a slow and sustained fashion. This process can make your fertilizer applications more efficient and in the end reduce overall fertilizer use.

This same feeding frenzy of soil organisms that makes nutrients more readily available also is responsible for a degree of disease suppression. When soil organisms are active they are competing for food with many of the organisms responsible for disease. This competition reduces the number of disease organisms, thereby reducing the severity of disease.

If one is averse to mixing compost directly into a topdressing mix, there is an alternative. Pound for pound the most efficient way to use compost is in a compost tea. Commercial compost tea brewers are designed to incorporate oxygen into a water and compost mix so that aerobic organisms can thrive.

Most often molasses is used in the brewing process as a food source for the organisms. Compost tea must be applied as soon as possible or the aerobic organisms will die. Twenty pounds of compost can yield 50 gallons of tea and can cover 2-10 acres. Compost tea can be applied in a low-pressure spray rig or through a fertigation system.

Troy Russell, Superintendent of the highly acclaimed Bandon Dunes Golf Club in Oregon, has been able to reduce his fertilizer budget by 50% and has nearly eliminated fungicide use by using compost tea every other day through his fertigation system.

High quality compost is the key to any compost use on a golf course. Whether you make it yourself or buy it from an outside source, it should be analyzed. Measurements of organic matter, pH, C:N ratio, biological activity, and disease suppressive characteristics should be measured by a bio-analytical laboratory. A reputable compost producer should be able to provide you with these statistics.

Compost is not the “be all to end all” for golf course maintenance, but it is an important tool for turf managers that is currently underutilized. Geographic location and climate will always dictate how well certain cultural practices will work and the same holds true for compost applications.

Exploring the possibilities of irrigating less, fertilizing less, and applying fewer chemicals through the use of compost makes good sense. The potential for fewer chemical and fertilizer inputs will lower your budget and can hopefully open up some time for the family on a Sunday afternoon in July!

Richard Luff is Superintendent of the Sagamore Golf and Country Club in North Hampton, NH. He is also co-author of a new book titled Ecological Golf Course Management published by Ann Arbor Press