Zoysia

When Eric Reasor flew from Tennessee to Thailand, he brought along measuring tools to assess how golf balls roll across putting greens. He visited 22 golf courses in 5 days.

I led a seminar in which I discussed how much one can expect grass to grow. During that seminar, I said something like: grass can always grow more, but turfgrass managers restrict the growth rate by supplying less nitrogen fertilizer than the grass can use.

A fine-bladed manilagrass growing faster than Tifeagle bermudagrass. I’ve written about zoysia growing faster than bermuda. Mike Richardson asked: so, the real question…is that better? “Slow growing” has always been one of my favorite traits of zoysia…

One of the best places to study tropical grasses in Southeast Asia is at the Suanluang Rama IX Public Park in Bangkok’s Prawet District. The two primary species on lawns at Suanluang Rama IX are tropical carpetgrass (Axonopus compressus) in shaded areas and manilagrass (Zoysia matrella) in open areas.

I sure can. The first thing I look at for different species is the Kew RBG GrassBase. Here are the entries for Zoysia matrella and Zoysia japonica. Both are perennial, mat forming grasses.

This is something that has never made sense to me. Actually, it seems ridiculous. Zoysia greens are not renowned for being especially fast. But zoysia has especially high silica content in the leaves.

… it doesn’t. In fact, there is one variety of manilagrass (Zoysia matrella) that consistently grows faster than bermudagrass in Southeast Asia. I’ve had occasion to study and measure this grass, and there is no doubt that it grows faster than bermuda here.

Korai green on the 18th at Keya GC during the 2014 KBC Augusta tournament. Why would one deliberately use manilagrass (Zoysia matrella, or korai in Japan) on golf course putting greens?

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.

Abiko Golf Club won GOLF Magazine’s Best International Renovation of 2013 award. In the article about the work, I read that Brian Silva, with co-designer Kye Goalby, “transitioned the old Japanese two-green system – one bentgrass, the other local korai grass – down to one.