All Episodes
Displaying 1 - 30 of 218 in total
Measuring green speed, sloped greens, flat spots, and the Brede equation
The Brede equation takes the harmonic mean of the uphill and downhill directions to give the precise stimpmeter measurement with no overestimation. The update discusse...
El Niño, GvX, stress, percentage change, and weather anomalies
I answer a question from a listener and describe resources I use when assessing likely effects from an El Niño weather pattern, The update discussed is https://pacetur...
More about green firmness, 3 principles, and topdressing once a year
I go back five years to another video showing ball reaction on greens topdressed once that year. The post discussed with embedded video, is https://www.asianturfgrass...
Following the water: how calcium gets to the root and stays there
Calcium is an essential element that is almost never required as fertilizer for turfgrass. This episodes explains how mass flow of Ca in the soil water creates an accu...
No rain, one boar, and 40 years of summer precipitation
The KBC News TV station did a profile of Keya GC greenkeeper Andrew McDaniel. Watch that (with an English language soundtrack, if necessary) and hear about the driest ...
Phosphorus, rootzone volume, and algae
I discussed grass responding to P at establishment, but not at maturity, as a function of soil P combined with rootzone volume. Posts discussed are: https://www.asian...
When the soil report is not really about extractable vs. available nutrients
The topic of nutrient availability and extractable vs. exchangeable vs. available nutrients used to come up a lot, and I'm glad I haven't been asked this question as f...
Stressed turf and nutrient supply
This episode discusses Grime's definition of stress as "external constraints which limit the rate of dry matter production" and how this is related to nutrient supply/...
What happens to sand particle sizes after topdressing
I looked at sand particle sizes at the top of putting green rootzones, and compared those particle sizes to what is in the sand topdressing. The average results of thi...
Wet air, summer, and dew point depression
I looked at the temperatures and dew points for a range of cities around the world during the first month of the most recent meteorological summer. June 2026 in the no...
Putting green firmness and surface organic material (OM246)
The firmness of putting greens varies with the surface organic material. More organic material in the top 2 cm (0.8 inches), and greens are softer. I discuss terminolo...
Sand topdressing matched to clipping volume, with Bjarni Hannesson
I've updated my recommendation for the sand quantity to apply for every unit of clipping volume harvested, if your goal is to keep surface organic material constant. B...
Post-rain growth flush: 12 mL from water, 8 from mineralized soil N, & 2.5 from N in the rain
This is about partitioning the growth flush after a rain. What's causing that growth flush? I made some calculations, using New Forest GC in the UK as an example. The ...
More air in the soil with frequent irrigation
It sounds counterintuitive at first, that you can maintain a lower average water content in the soil, and a higher air content in the soil, by applying irrigation ever...
Why you should know standard sand amounts but not necessarily copy them, with Brian Whitlark
Brian Whitlark joined me to talk about sand topdressing of putting greens and especially about sand amounts. The blog post we discussed is: https://www.asianturfgrass....
Competition, stress, disturbance, species, strategies, and Grime
High maintenance turf often requires a high disturbance and high stress environment. Grime's CSR theory says there are "no viable strategies" for plants in such an env...
Downward trend in OM2 and varying sand and N rates by green with T-Jay Creamer
T-Jay Creamer is the golf course superintendent at Olympic View Golf Club on Vancouver Island. He's seen a steady decrease in OM2 in response to his N and sand rates, ...
Averages, river crossings, fescue, nutrients, spot spraying, and snow mold with Jason Haines
Jason Haines is the Links Superintendent at Cabot Cape Breton. We had a wide ranging conversation about blog posts from 2025, a new #MLSN article, controlling snow mo...
Firmness, sand, and zoysiagrass with Stewart Naugler
Stewart Naugler is the Director of Agronomy at Loraloma in Texas. We talked about zoysiagrass as a golfing surface, playability, and maintenance requirements. We start...
Total organic material, soil organic matter, and screens
Thatch and mat at the top of turfgrass rootzones are removed from soils prior to testing for soil organic matter. Total organic material (OM246) testing is designed to...
GCSAA seminar overview, condition-based maintenance, and PAR
This gives an overview of the seminars I presented at the GCSAA Conference in 2026 and discusses updated PACE Turf site analyses of photosynthetically active radiation...
Research words, a new Turf Twitter analysis, and tropical grasses with Maggie Reiter
Maggie Reiter joined me to discuss her "Finding Turf Twitter" analysis, her analysis of current turf research topics at the ASA-CSSA-SSSA meetings, tropical grasses, a...
A blunt conclusion about coring
Scientific writing is not always as clear as this. There's an article I really enjoyed that stated right at the start, in the abstract, that core aeration "might not b...
Flights & turf photos with Dr. John Kaminski
Dr. Kaminski joined me from his sabbatical in Australia to discuss flights, turf photos, and what he's been doing on his sabbatical. The blog post we discussed is: htt...
If soil is above #MLSN, add only N?
This episode answers that question with how I recommend doing this. For today, we don't need to add N. But the soil nutrient levels decrease with time, we can predict ...
Top 10 posts of 2025 holiday extravaganza with Joe Gulotti
Joe Gulotti joined me to give the doublecut treatment to the top posts of 2025 on the ATC blog, plus a bit of holiday extravaganza. Blog post discussed is: https://www...
Nutrient recommendations when clippings are removed vs. returned
When grass clippings are returned to the turf, the quantity of nutrients required as fertilizer is decreased. In this episode I discuss how I handle the clippings retu...
Soil nutrient values in units of "years of use" rather than units of ppm
The #MLSN method for nutrient recommendations involves an MLSN value that the soil is not supposed to drop below. But what does this value mean, when converted from th...
How to make greens soft, and the opposite, making soft greens harder
This episode explains the steps I'd take to change greens from too hard (surface hardness and ball bounce, not hard as in difficulty) to just right. It follows that th...
Sand quantity as depth, and a suggestion to measure sand application rates
Expressing sand quantities as a depth makes communication easier. But to know the depth, you need to know how much sand was applied to begin with. I've been surprised ...