Get control

When Chalin Malbari became the superintendent at Battleground Country Club in Manalapan, N.J., he had plenty of Poa annua to deal with across six push-up greens and 13 sand greens. He wanted to get aggressive, but he knew there was too much Poa and too many different types to be able to take it all out without some major changes.

“I’m not going to be a superstar and try to eliminate all the Poa,” says Malbari. “What’s there is there. What I can do is control it from now on and keep it from getting any worse.”

During his first year at the course, he stuck to just applications of Primo, using the same program that the superintendent before him had. But he wasn’t getting the coverage across the course he wanted by not rocking the boat.

“By the end of the year, in late fall, I thought, ‘This isn’t what I want, it isn’t working.’ The roots really weren’t there with just Primo.”

He looked into other options and going into the next season started a program with Legacy across the greens at a low rate while continuing Primo on the tees and fairways. Throughout the year, he fine-tuned the program with applications to see if the new approach got him closer to the control he wanted. He added Embark to his program as well to help fine-tune the control while keeping the turf and roots healthy.

He starts the season with applications of Embark, plus a tankmix with Primo. Once he’s out of spring, he uses apps of Musketeer and Legacy to continue that control throughout the summer.

“What I’m trying to do is keep that curve straight,” he says. “I don’t like that rebound and flush of growth. I rotate through that the whole summer. It’s like spoonfeeding your greens. You’ve got sprayers out there with the fungicides every two weeks that time of year, and you’re putting out nutrients and fertilizer every other week. So if you rotate the PGRs with those, you can get it weekly.

“Then by June and July, you barely get any growth and you can start skipping mowings, so I can cut and roll, and cut and roll.”

With the Poa growth suppressed effectively, he can find more days to eliminate cutting and just roll the greens, keeping more stress off the turf during the season. And keeping the growth under control while giving the roots a chance to grow helps protect the turf from threats like Pythium. Plus, he’s been able to add more cultural management like vertidraining in the spring. But most important to him is that by asking questions and trying out ideas, he’s been able to establish a program that fits his course.

“A lot of guys learn from their superintendents and mentors and they stick with what they have seen and believe is right, but that’s the only thing they’ve known,” Malbari says. “But once you start trying things and experimenting, you’re going to feel better about your program because it’s your own, and you’re able to tweak it and find ways to improve it.”