Nitrogen and why I find it fascinating
An introductory post
Recently I was reading Micah Wood’s blog post titled Seasonal nitrogen use, how much and when? | Asian Turfgrass Center. I was intrigued by the title and it didn’t take long for me to realize why. In the third paragraph, Micah mentions an article I shared in 2014 about the seasonal stages of bentgrass nitrogen fertilization.
Micah writes:
My thoughts on that paper, quickly: it seems unnecessarily complicated and I don’t understand where the “six” seasonal stages come from. That seems like an arbitrary number. One could imagine another approach with three, or seven, or seventeen stages too. I like the idea of applying as little N as possible. But I would go about that in a different way, because I think applying nitrogen when the grass can take it up gives me control over the growth.
I read Micah’s post with a smile because it made me think about how much my approach to nitrogen has changed in the past 10 years. As my career has gone on, my approach to nitrogen fertilizer has changed a lot. I’ve always tried to continue gaining a better understanding of how to use it in order to produce the best possible turf conditions.
During the process of learning about nitrogen, I was turned on to the previously mentioned six seasonal stages of bentgrass nitrogen fertilization1. With a title like that, how could a bentgrass nerd not be intrigued? If you haven’t read the article, I’d encourage you to do so. Despite potentially being over complicated and suggesting a much debunked late-season approach, there are some parts worth noting. Like this:
What I have learned over the years is that the use of nitrogen interests me a great deal and I find it fascinating. I’ve also found it to be maybe my number one tool when it comes to managing bentgrass over annual bluegrass. Over the next few posts, I’d like to share my experience with nitrogen over the years: how I used it then vs now, the forms of nitrogen I apply and how I think it can keep our surfaces as nearly pure bentgrass over the long-term. Some of it will be anecdotal, some of it scientific. Hopefully you will find all of it to be interesting.
The Six Seasonal Stages of Bentgrass Nitrogen Fertilization, Dr. Ralph E. Engel, USGA Green Section Record, July/August 1988