potassium

I look forward to some photos from Doug Soldat. For many years, he’s had some fascinating photos to share of snow mold on creeping bentgrass. And each year, there was more snow mold where potassium fertilizer was applied, and less snow mold where potassium wasn’t applied.

When I saw this photo captioned “a little potassium replenishment being applied,” I asked “replenishment from what loss?” As I found out, the potassium (K) was being applied after a heavy rain event.

Does adding more potassium improve drought resistance? This article by Rowland et al. takes an in-depth look at that important question. They looked at bermudagrass (Tifeagle and Tifdwarf), seashore paspalum (SeaDwarf), and zoysia (PristineFlora) grown in a USGA sand rootzone.

Doug Soldat reports on descreased pink snow mold associated with low soil potassium. First he describes the study: In 2011, we began a trial to attempt to identify the lowest level of soil potassium that would still provide high putting green quality.

The short answer is no, so long as sufficient potassium (K) is present in the soil. Cisar et al. looked at Tifway bermudagrass performance when the soil contained high amounts of sodium (Na).

Dr. Larry Stowell and I recorded this video interview (back in 2012!) about potassium fertilizer for turfgrass. How much potassium is enough? How should you decide how much potassium to apply to meet the plant requirements, without wasting money by applying too much?

Golf course putting greens and other high-use turf are generally grown in a sand rootzone. In Asia, many courses also have tees, fairways, and sometimes even rough areas plated with sand as well.