No need for nematodes on new turf

A rock quarry, soothing pastures and smooth greens. A desirable trifecta is allowing Adena Golf and Country Club to separate itself in Florida’s crowded golf market.

Opened in 2015, Adena represents the vision of Frank Stronach, an Austrian-born businessman based in Toronto. The Ocala, Fla., land where Adena sits provides Stronach with an opportunity to combine elements of a horse farm and grass-fed cattle operation with an 18-hole golf course.  
 
The expansive course in the sleepy setting has aged nicely in the last two years, according to senior director of agronomy Asa High.

“Our property is absolutely phenomenal,” says High, who joined Adena’s staff in 2014. “The reputation has just grown and grown and grown. Now you can’t go anywhere down here without somebody saying, ‘Hey, have you heard about that new place Adena? Have you played it? What’s with it?’ That has been really exciting for us.”

The presence of a quarry means most of Adena is constructed above limestone, although there’s one major below-the-surface exception – the greens are sand-based. Elite greens are a key separator among Florida courses. And developing elite sand-based greens in Central Florida often means concocting ways to control nematodes. “Yeah, it’s a major concern,” High says. “But we superintendents are a resilient bunch.”

Frequent topdressing allows High to create a healthy organic layer below TifEagle greens and Celebration Bermudagrass fairways and tees. Proper fertility, mowing heights and water management are also stalwarts of the agronomic and nematode control programs.
 
Most of Adena’s key areas have avoided alarming nematode counts, but High says one green had only 70 percent turf coverage upon his arrival because of root-knot nematodes. “Just through my experience from where I was in the past and everything we did, we were really able to turn that green around,” he adds. “But there was a section of that green, probably about the size of a golf cart, no matter what we threw at it, we could not grow grass.”

Superintendents had few options for controlling nematodes until Bayer released Indemnify last summer. High received his first experience with the nematicide through a demonstration program where he treated half of the green. The green had full turf coverage in less than eight weeks, according to High. Nematode thresholds continued to decrease last fall after Adena made its first full-scale Indemnify application.

Indemnify has become a regular part of Adena’s spray program, with a spring and fall application planned for this year. The security it provides has High even more enthusiastic about Adena’s future.

“We just have to continue to push the envelope of what we provide our members,” he says. “We are starting to gain a large national membership. As we get more members, we are going to have more demands placed on us and the expectations will rise and we will have to meet those expectations. Thankfully I’m not going to have to worry about nematodes because of Indemnify and all the other things we are doing.”

About the author
Guy Cipriano is GCI’s associate editor.