We have been seeing a good amount of Poa annua sprouting on our greens this spring. The cooler temperatures have been the primary cause of the surge in Poa annua growth. The plant does better in cooler temperatures than our A-1/A-4 creeping bentgrass greens which have been engineered to thrive in the warmer summer months. The Poa annua out competes the bentgrass for a few weeks and is able to take hold in areas that it would not be able to otherwise.
Poa annua can be very aggressive in the way that it colonizes new areas so every spring we take steps to combat it's advance. We treat the spots that show up on the greens early in the spring with a chemical that will kill the Poa annua but leave the bentgrass untouched. As the spring goes on we begin picking the Poa annua from the greens and filling it in with a mix of sand and seed.
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| New bentgrass seedlings growing from the spot that the Poa annua was picked from. Both images were taken this morning on #13 green. |
