GreenKeeper is pleased to host weekly COVID-19 meetings during this pandemic. These meetings will focus on agronomic practices, strategies, and other BMPs to help golf course superintendents navigate this tough time. Bill Kreuser and Doug Soldat host these sessions guest scientists, turfgrass managers, and industry professionals. Please feel free to interact as we navigate this issue together.

We’ll meet weekly on Zoom to discuss various topics.  Join us at 2pm CDT simply by clicking this link: https://zoom.us/j/333761797. We will post the recorded videos from these sessions on this blog.

Upcoming Guests

Week 1: Dr. Frank Rossi, Cornell University – 3/25

Week 2: Dr. Ben McGraw, Penn State University – 4/1

Week 3: Dr. Paul Koch, University of Wisconsin-Madison – 4/8

Week 4: Adam Moeller & Paul Jacobs, USGA Green Section – 4/15

Week 5: GreenKeeper App Q&A. No guest, so bring your GreenKeeper questions – 4/22

Week 6: Dr. Roch Gaussoin, University of Nebraska-Lincoln – 4/29

Week 1 (3/25): Managing Growth Rate with Mowing, N and PGRs

This session focused on growth rate management with spring fertilization, mowing practices, PGRs, and traffic tolerance. Guest: Dr. Frank Rossi, Cornell University. Also read our blog article Managing Growth Rate during COVID-19.

 

Week 2 (4/1): Spring Insect Control with Ben McGraw, PhD

The second week of the GreenKeeper Weekly COVID-19 discussion focused on insect control with Ben McGraw, PhD, from Penn State University. He covered annual bluegrass weevil, worms, the rise of chinch bug damage, grubs, models, and insecticide resistance.

Week 3 (4/8): Spring Disease Control with Paul Koch, PhD

This week Dr. Paul Koch, Turfgrass Pathologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, joined us to talk about spring disease control. Topics included spring root diseases like take-all and summer patch, dollar spot control and modeling, cultural practices and disease control, and Pythium root rot.

Week 4 (4/15): COVID-19 Update with USGA Agronomists

Adam Moeller & Paul Jacobs from the USGA Green Section joined the weekly GreenKeeper COVID-19 conversation. We covered topics ranging from minimal maintenance to packed golf courses depending on location, player safety and amendments to USGA rules, USGA championships, what to expect as courses start to reopen.

Week 5 (4/22): Questions from the Floor

This week we answered questions from the panel. They included spring green-up and nitrogen fertilization, interpreting soil test results, using prohexadione-Ca, new GreenKeeper features like Inventory Management, Application Advisor, and the new DMI/PGR models, changing GDD model start dates, and PGR stacking.

 

Week 6 (4/29): All Things Organic Matter with Roch Gaussion, PhD

This week Dr. Roch Gaussoin, Extension Turfgrass Specialist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, joined us to talk putting green construction, cultivation, sampling consistency, sand topdressing quantity and quality, and fairway topdressing.