Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/319149
30 WESTERN CANADA TURFGRASS ASSOCIATION For years, golf course Superintendents have relied on their gut to tell them if their turf was responding properly to inputs that were applied. We were simply equipped with a soil probe, a thermometer and what we thought would work from past experiences as well as trials that we performed. All this may seem weird from a guy in his late 30's, but I started my career as a 13-year-old kid at a small 9-hole golf course in Saskatchewan, pulled a drag mat by hand and, of the equipment we did have, most was much older than I was! Now I look at my maintenance yard and see some of the most modern tools to perform my job. Many of them I never operate and I can feel that 13-year-old boy kicking my butt. The problem now is that all these great tools have allowed us to cut the grass lower and cleaner, get smoother playing surfaces and in reality, create an engineered playing surface. Golfers of all levels and at all levels of facilities are expecting almost unrealistic conditions yet we keep pushing the envelope to give it to them. Many of our daily practices are not good for the plant, a sacrifice we make for perfect sur- faces. We then add all sorts of inputs, cultivate with a variety of machines and try to provide optimal moisture in an attempt to contend with what we did in the first place. The real question then is, "How can we stay ahead of ourselves and our damaging practices?" Unlike in years past, technology is coming at an extremely rapid pace. We find that industry demands are forcing us to keep up, often living on the edge. If you are a superintendent who simply turns on your irrigation system in May and off in October, or fertilizes because your program says so, you better get ready to change. And it doesn't matter what level of course you are at. If we think about how quickly this is hap- pening, note that the stimpmeter has basically been the same since 1935 with a change in manufacturing material in 1976. Now, because of our own doings, we have a stimpmeter that only goes half as far so we can measure our lightning- fast sloped greens, and yes, I am looking in the mirror as I can stimp just one of the greens at our facility with the old stimpmeter. In this series of articles, we will present some of the added technologies that are now available to us. Some are must-haves and others could be considered simple luxury. WATER! For anyone maintaining sportsfields, golf courses or any high-end turf who doesn't use a TDR, go out and get one, learn how to use it and turn off your sprinklers. They are around $1100, down from $15K when they were just in research. I am sorry if I offend anybody, but THERE ARE A VARIETY OF SOIL MOISTURE METERS AVAILABLE. INDUSTRY NEWS BY NORLEY CALDER SUPERINTENDENT, SAGEBRUSH GOLF AND SPORTING CLUB YOUR GUT NOW HAS A NUMBER