UMN Turf Research
Thinking about soil nitrogen and fertilizer practices By: Jon Trappe Extension Educator University of Minnesota
Nitrogen drives nutrient management programs on golf courses. Numerous factors impact nitrogen amounts applied to greens, tees, fairways, roughs, practice areas, natural areas, and the general grounds of a golf course. Some of these factors include playability, weather, player expectations, species/ cultivar selection, mowing and PGR practices, biotic stresses, cost, and soil characteristics.
downwards. This comes from the most recent Golf Course Environmental Profile Study that compared surveys conducted in 2006, 2014, and 2021 by golf course superintendents for the fertilizer practices and decision factors behind those practices and compared these responses within geographic regions and over time. This is an incredibly informative report that I highly recommend you check out if you haven’t already. For the better part of the last two A summary of the report can decades, the amount of fertilizer be found in the January 2023 in general, and nitrogen in issue of the GCM Magazine. particular, applied across playing surfaces and over the golf course Other than the overall as a whole, has been trending management trends across the 52