Thursday, October 3, 2013

Ghostly Bentgrass

Bentgrass after 1 of 3 applications
Over the past few weeks, I have been spraying a product called Tenacity on the 3rd and 7th hole of the lake course.  Tenacity is a selective herbicide labeled for many weeds, but in our case, I am going after the bentgrass that is taking over our ryegrass fairways.  When the course was seeded in 1998, there was 10% colonial bentgrass in the seed blend and we have many large areas of bentgrass in our fairways.  Looking at the photos of what is dead and what is healthy, you have to be amazed at the chemistry to be so selective.  It also amazes me that it only takes 5 oz/ A to take care of business.

After three applications, I am pretty sure the bentgrass is toast.  It is really cool how the bentgrass turns stark white after the active ingredient begins to take effect.  This is because the active stops photosynthesis.  We will be reseeding in the next week with ryegrass.  The experiment isn't so much as to whether the product works now, but what will happen next year after the ryegrass has established.  If the bentgrass comes back quickly than I may as well spend less money on round up and fusilade.