Jumping on the pigment bandwagon: Lower cost, better weed control

=Tray Maltby, director of golf course grounds at Reunion Resort in Orlando, Fla.He may handle maintenance operations for three golf courses and have 60 employees working under him, but Tray Maltby is simply a superintendent at heart.

“I just love golf!” says the director of golf course grounds at Reunion Resort near Orlando, Fla. “I’ve loved it since my grandmother first introduced me to it when I was a kid.” His passion shows in the pristine conditions of the three signature golf courses he’s managed since 2004, when the resort opened.

Designed by legendary golfers Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, the courses, like their creators, each have their own distinctive style. But they have at least one thing in common – their turfgrass varieties. They all feature Tifeagle bermudagrass greens, Tifdwarf bermuda collars and approaches and 419 bermuda on tees, fairways and roughs.

Built on former orange groves and pastureland, Reunion has perennially had problems with sedges and other broadleaf weeds. But because the resort’s major clientele are Snow Birds who flock to Florida for the winter months, Maltby customarily overseeds all three courses. Transitioning back from overseeding in the spring often delays his preemergence herbicide applications, preventing him from getting a jump on tough weeds.

“Northerners want to play on green grass,” says Maltby, who has hosted three LPGA tournaments at the resort since the mid-2000s. “In central Florida, we can get a freeze and/or heavy frost where bermudagrass will go off-color. So we used to overseed everything wall-to-wall six months of the year. But now we’re rethinking that model.”

Traditionally, Maltby planted perennial ryegrass on tees and fairways and Poa trivialis on greens, collars and approaches each October. “It costs roughly $40,000 to overseed all 90 acres of turf — and that’s just to get the seed here, before I’ve even opened a bag,” he says. “When you add in fertilizer, herbicides, fuel costs and labor, it jumps up to more than $100,000.”

Liquid overseeding trial

=Annika Sorenstam calls Reunion Resort home base with an impressive on-site academy.However, with the advent of “liquid overseeding” — coloring the turf with pigments through winter months — Maltby feels he may have found a lower-cost solution to keeping his grass green, as well as accelerating his weed-control program.

“We chose not to overseed the Nicklaus course greens this year and sprayed a few different pigment products as a trial instead,” he says. “It’s turned out really well for us so far. For starters, it costs about one-third less than traditional overseeding. Plus you don’t have to deal with transition, which can get ugly — and costly — in the spring.”

Last October and November, Maltby put out several different pigments mixed in foliar 12-0-0 fertilizer with iron, manganese and magnesium. He came back roughly every two weeks to reapply the products. “I’ve stretched it a little longer sometimes,” he says. “If the grass isn’t growing, the pigment stays on the leaf blade. But if it’s growing and you are mowing, you’ll have to reapply sooner.”

One of the big pluses to liquid overseeding is that Maltby can start spring grooming practices to improve turf health much earlier than he could with traditional overseeding. In addition, he can be much more aggressive in applying postemergence herbicides to battle spring weeds.

“We use Echelon herbicide as part of our preemergence program in the spring and it works very well,” he says. “We’ve found it to be very effective in areas where we’ve perennially had problems with sedges and other tough-to-control weeds. Sedge tubers are like little nuts in the soil that are very difficult to control. We’ve used other preemergence products, but Echelon does a great job on them. This year, we used it on all three golf courses — not just where we didn’t overseed.”

=Tray Maltby, center, with superintendents Robert Guerra and Ron Sharps.Because of the way bunkers on all three courses are designed, weed control is difficult in those areas. “There are no round flat bunkers anywhere at Reunion,” he says. “They have lots of undulations with pits and pockets of grass and it’s hard to get a good coating of preemergence herbicides around them. So we’ve mixed Echelon into our spray rigs and actually applied it with a handgun — similar to how the home lawn guys do it. We have all types of sedges here and Echelon has been very effective in helping us control them.”

With one year under his belt using liquid overseeding, Maltby is poised to try it on the other two Reunion courses next year. Most of the golfers can’t tell the difference between the pigment and overseeding, he says.

“In May, when we start our spring transition, the Nicklaus greens will already be leaps and bounds ahead of the Palmer and Watson greens,” he says. “I think it’s a win-win for us.”

– by Debbie Clayton