Can greens be maintained without grass fertilizer?

Q: My question is about grass fertilizers. I would like to know if it is possible to build a standard USGA specification green but maintain it without the use of fertilizers?

A: Fertilizer is the essential source of nutrition for all turfgrasses. If you are wondering about maintaining a green without any fertilizers of any kind, it would be impossible on any green including a USGA spec one. The turf needs some sort of nutrition to stay healthy and continue growing, and in a monoculture (single type of plant or crop) such as a putting green, there is no symbiotic food source. That is there is no other sufficient source of dead organic material to serve as its sole food source.

Now if you are asking about chemical fertilizers versus compost or organic grass fertilizers, then the answer is completely different. Yes, it is possible to grow any green without chemical or man-made fertilizers, but it takes a lot more knowledge and trial and error to get it working well. Organic fertilizers release much more slowly and continuously than most chemical grass fertilizers, so it is much harder to perfect the timing to release nitrogen and other nutrients exactly as the turf needs it. Weather, humidity and temperature all impact on organic fertilizer release rates. Yes, it can be done, though probably more easily on a push-up or modified green, as they would already have much more organic material; whereas on a USGA green, you are inherently trying to limit organic material build-up to maintain high infiltration rates which helps keep the turf healthy while provide excellent playing conditions.

Personally, I am much less worried about chemical fertilizers (though I welcome more use of organic fertilizers,) but much more concerned with the use of pesticides. It is much easier to reduce or in a backyard putting green even eliminate pesticides with good agronomic knowledge of risk factors.

Here are a couple of articles on the research the USGA did at Bethpage NY trying to go pesticide free and introducing more organic fertilizers.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/chronicle/02/6.13.02/Chronicle.pdf
(go to the middle of page 4)

http://usgatero.msu.edu/v03/n04.pdf

It is interesting to note that compost was required to reduce winter disease in the absence of chemical pesticides! Compost is essentially organic fertilizer, so there can be additional benefits to using certain organic sources over traditional chemical grass fertilizers. However, a lot of research will need to be in that area. Presently the trend in the golf course industry has been to go extensively into IPM (Integrated Pest Management) which takes into account all the environmental conditions affecting the turf and uses pesticides as a last resort to control problems. This had led a drastic reduction in pesticide use, however golfers need to be educated that a course with a few blemishes is in fact healthier than blemish free perfection.


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