Golfdom, October 2011

Turf on Trial AC CU SA T IO N 1 A C C U SA T I O N 3 24 Golfdom October 2011 PHOTOS COURTESY KYLE SWEET CGCS At the Sanctuary Golf Club superintendent Kyle Sweet left and IPM manager Jason Craft have found success with a program that not only meets the courses needs but also satisfies the needs of the surrounding wildlife refuge AC CUS ATI O N 4 REBUT TAL THE SANCTUARY Golf Club on Sanibel Island Fla is surrounded by one of the most visited national wildlife refuges in the country The private club strikes a balance between a world class Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary golf course and Mother Nature Maintenance expectations are high even though the neighboring J N Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge dictates what chemical products are applied on the course When theres a new product we want to use the refuge says yeah or nay says Kyle Sweet CGCS As superintendent Sweet is faced with a dual challenge maintaining the health of the refuges habitat while complying with Sanibels golf course fertilizer and lake management recommendations Its all about the grass Six years ago Sanctuary Golf Club was battling a nasty cocktail of salty irrigation water residual salts in island soils and damaging salt spray during high winds Consequently the club converted from bermudagrass to paspalum Now Sanctuary features seashore paspalum everywhere Where we are youre going to have salt problems no matter what Sweet says We average just less than 40 inches of rain a year which is typically much less than the mainland More salts and less rain led us to paspalum Since switching to paspalum Sweet has cut nitrogen use in half for tees and fairways and reduced the nitrogen needed for greens by 70 percent He uses a combination of slow and quick release products throughout the year regulating soluble nitrogen rates to no more than halfpound rates From January to August of 2011 nitrogen amounts for tees fairways and greens were 3 pounds of nitrogen per 1000 square feet We have sandy soils bad water heavy shade and limited air movement and were still using less nitrogen to provide an improved playing surface Sweet says Bye bye pests Using pesticides in a wildlife refuge is controversial But Sanctuary can use a limited amount of insecticides to combat pests such as mole crickets To keep the mole cricket population down Sweet slit applies Chipco Choice fipronil on tees and fairways each spring He uses Top Choice on greens for residual control and treats roughs with Orthene acephate in active mole cricket areas I dont think the mole crickets like our soil as much as others because its filled with seashells Sweet says Worms however love Sanctuarys soil so much they have become the clubs nemesis Sanctuarys wooded milieu provides a haven for tropical sod webworm and armyworm adults which in summer can create generations of larvae Although Sanctuary has the OK to use Orthene Conserve and B thuringiensis for worm T H E DEFENSE CALLS TO THE STAND