Spring IPM

The winter months are slipping away quickly and we are only two weeks from begining our IPM program.  Starting March 1st we begin our degree day counting.  Degree day modeling is the backbone of our integrated plant management program.  Trapping has also become a good method for us to compare to the degree day models.

Two years ago, we began to create our IPM program to fight back from the loss in 2007.  We began trapping Billbugs to help understand our population and started tracking growing degree days and used degree day models to help anticipate insect development.  We have had significant success from our program over the past two season on insect and disease control.

If we can take a second to reflect, the golf course three years ago had reduced playing conditions.  Rough was pocketed and thin throughout.  Bunker faces were in need of sod work and tee surrounds, were nearly gone.  Insect management was a large part of restoring the rough around the greens and the south facing slopes.  Our disease and insect management has done a great job protecting the fairways and ensuring course quality year round.

This year will be a successful year in pest management.

If you have any questions about how we monitor insects or scout for disease please contact me.

Justin C. Ruiz, CGCS

justinr@therimgolfclub.org

GreenGolfUSA

The IPM tool that Green Golf USA offers is free to anyone who would like to try it. The website is quick and easy to navigate and in a short time you are up and running and ready to create a custom IPM program for your course. The IPM tool is constantly getting updated and soon to be an option on the tool is anticipating pests using growing degree days. I would recommend that you try this tool out if your are interested in impressing the members at your next greens committee meeting and helping you to better manage your property.

I did a quick run through and entered the information onto the Green Golf USA template. It took me around an hour and a half to enter all the info. I was surprised at how easy the tool used drop down menus to select information. I created my own IPM program a few years ago and the amount of time I spent collecting information and writing the program took weeks. The best part of the program is that it takes into account all aspects of golf course maintenance. I focused on mainly pests when I did it on my own while the tool covered the details about the maintenance building, wash area, chemical storage and clubhouse.

The program was simple to follow and I enjoyed the fact that you could pick from a list of insects, diseases, weeds that were important for your course. I felt that this made the process very quick and easy to produce a report that was custom to our course. A program like this is perfect timing for the green revolution. It will make a great tool for superintendents that may be overwhelmed when thinking about creating a program for their course.

I could not believe that after I did minimal data entry the tool produced a professional 40 page report. The report included all the filler explaining IPM and the golf course areas, usually the busy work involved and used the critical data that I entered when needed. I was quickly contacted after completion of the report by Tom and he was very receptive to any comments and offered any additional information from our program could be incorporated for a small fee for the data entry. The cost of a consultant to create a professional IPM program like I created on Green Golf USA could cost thousands and take valuable time, but I was able to create it for free and it took a minimal amount of time.

I look forward to working with the BMP generator next for our water conservation program. It is very relieving to see that something has finally been made to make IPM more attainable to the superintendent and invoke more responsible management practices.

If you have any comments please contact me.

Justin C. Ruiz, CGCS
justinr@therimgolfclub.org