Orange Paint on Fairways



Spraying Velocity on #2 Fairway (click to enlarge)

 A few people have asked me about the orange paint marks on a few of our fairways.  We are conducting a trial with Valent Canada using a herbicide caled Velocity.  The orange marks are check plots which are covered with plywood when we spray so we can observe what untreated turf looks like.  This product was designed to eliminate annual bluegrass from a creeping bentgrass stand of turf.  The program we are are on is called 'transitional conversion' in which very light rates and very wide application intervals are used.  This is because we have quite a bit of annual bluegrass in our fairways and killing it quickly would not be desirable!  What we want to do is weaken the annual bluegrass so that the creeping bentgrass has a competitive advantage.  If the program is successful, we will gain creeping bentgrass - a more desirable turf species becasue of its resistance to heat, drought, disease, and winter injury.  For more information click on the following link:

http://www.valent.ca/products/velocity/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=5079