Equipment
The practice of sharpening reel mower blades by rotating the reel in reverse while applying an abrasive grinding compound.
Backlapping
The three indispensable conditions required for plant disease development: a susceptible host, a virulent pathogen, and a favorable environm
What is the disease triangle?
A measure of a soil's capacity to retain and exchange positively charged nutrient ions like calcium, magnesium, and potassium.
What is Cation Exchange Capacity?
The turfgrass species that prefer a more acidic soil around 6 pH
What is Centipedegrass?
The governing body that established scientific specifications for putting green construction and funds extensive turfgrass research.
What is the United States Golf Association?
A machine equipped with vertical blades designed to slice into the turf canopy to remove thatch, control grain, and thin out dense growth.
Verticutter
The legally binding document attached to a chemical container that details mixing rates, target pests, PPE, and restrictions—summarized by the phrase "The _____ is the law."
What is the pesticide label?
The calculation used to identify sodic soils, defined as the percentage of the total soil CEC occupied by sodium ions.
What is Exchangeable Sodium Percentage?
These two botanical binomials crossed to produce sterile interspecific hybrid bermudagrass cultivars.
What are Cynodon dactylon and Cynodon transvaalensis?
The primary professional organization providing education, certification, and advocacy for golf course superintendents.
What is the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America?
A heavy cultural renovation practice that completely strips away the top layer of turf canopy, thatch, and weed seed bank down to the soil surface.
What is fraize (fraze) mowing?
A holistic management strategy combining biological, cultural, physical, and chemical tools to manage pest populations safely and economically.
What is Integrated Pest Management?
A key metric used to assess soil or irrigation water salinity levels by measuring electrical current flow through a sample.
What is Electrical Conductivity?
The seminal creeping bentgrass cultivar bred at Penn State University by Dr. H. Burton Musser and released in 1954 as an industry standard.
What is 'Penncross'?
The federal executive department overseeing agricultural health, plant protection, and national soil conservation research programs.
What is the United States Department of Agriculture?
The undulating, washboard pattern left on turf when a reel mower's clip rate does not match its forward travel speed.
What is marcelling
The soil-borne fungal pathogen species responsible for Brown Patch (and Large Patch) in zoysiagrass.
What is Rhizoctonia solani?
A now optional 2-inch intermediate layer of coarse sand placed between gravel and the rootzone mix in classic USGA greens construction to prevent fine soil particles from washing down into the drainage gravel.
What is a choker layer?
The Georgia city home to the USDA-ARS Coastal Plain Experiment Station where Dr. Glenn Burton developed landmark hybrid bermudagrasses like Tifway and Tifgreen.
What is Tifton, Georgia?
The professional association dedicated to standardizing education and safety for managers responsible for athletic field surfaces.
What is the Sports Field Management Association (formerly STMA)?
This former Vice President of Toro studied under H.B. Musser, spent 50 years leading turf equipment development, and served as an industry liaison and global consultant.
Who is Dr. James R. Watson?
A seedling disease caused by soilborne fungi like Pythium or Rhizoctonia that rots young stems at the soil surface, causing them to collapse and die.
What is damping off?
The particle distribution metric to measure the uniformity of sand particles for greens rootzone mixes.
What is the Coefficient of Uniformity?
Highly valued in Poa pratensis cultivar selection, this asexual reproductive process allows elite, highly heterozygous plants to produce genetically identical seed clones without fertilization.
What is apomixis?
The federal organization enforcing workplace safety rules, personal protective equipment (PPE) requirements, and chemical Hazard Communication standards.
What is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration?