Golfdom, March 2018

Super Science Continued from page 37 killing shoots within 24 hours Vegetable hydraulic oil which does not contain significant amounts of lipid solvents probably smothered the shoots roots resulting in a more gradual shoot death VOLUME INFLUENCES INJURY TEMPERATURE DOESNT The volume of a spill has a great deal of influence over injury area Figure 3 Injury area on TifEagle hybrid bermudagrass was directly proportional to the volume of machine fluid spilled which makes sense As spill volume increased from 003 fl oz to 017 fl oz injury area increased linearly for both petroleum hydraulic oil and vegetable hydraulic oil Petroleum hydraulic oil always resulted in a larger injury area than vegetable hydraulic oil but both oils killed shoots just as dead However the temperature of the fluid at the time of the spill did not significantly influence the area of injured turf Figure 4 There were no significant differences in injury area for hydraulic oils spilled at 95 degrees F or 176 degrees F The notion that machine fluids need to be hot to kill turfgrass is a myth Hot oils kill turf but so do machine fluids at ambient temperature LIQUID DETERGENT INCREASES INJURY Over the past 40 years several methods for remediating machine fluid spills have been described with limited success A classic research example involved detergents charcoal and calcined clays being applied to spills of various petroleum products Researchers concluded that treating spills of hydraulic fluid and motor oil with detergent was an effective corrective treatment Yet at two weeks after treating only 45 percent turf cover was present which in todays world would be unacceptable Research with liquid detergent and spills of vegetable hydraulic oil showed that applying liquid detergent after a spill may not be such a good idea Photo 3 In this research 01 fl oz of vegetable hydraulic oil was heated to 176 degrees then applied to pots of TifEagle hybrid bermudagrass Half of the experimental units were left unwashed while the other FIGURE 3 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 0 Injury Area in2 PHO VHO 1 2 3 4 5 Spill Volume mL 6 Influence of volume on injury area for petroleum hydraulic oil PHO and vegetable hydraulic oil VHO spilled at ambient temperature i e 95 degrees F Injury response was linear for both oils The PHO always resulted in larger injury area for a given spill volume but shoots treated with VHO were just as dead FIGURE 2 Hue Angle Gasoline Vegetable Hydraulic Oil 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Days After Treatment 100 80 60 40 20 100 80 60 40 20 Changes in visual green shoot color with time in response to spills of 01 fl oz of gasoline and vegetable hydraulic oil The Y axis is hue angle which is a numerical descriptor of color The X axis is days after treatment Note how gasoline immediately caused loss of visual green color while color loss in response to vegetable hydraulic oil was more gradual At 12 days after treating all shoots were dead 38 Golfdom March 2018 Golfdom com