Episode 130: Micah Woods

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Trent Manning (00:05):
Welcome to the reel turf techs podcast for the
technician that wants to getreel follow along.
As we talk to industryprofessionals and address hot
topics that we all face alongthe way we'll learn tips and
tricks.
I'm your host, Trent.
Manning let's have some Welcometo the real turf text podcast,

(00:27):
episode one 30.
Today, we're talking to Micahwoods.
With Asian turf grass center andpaste turf.
Micah established the Asian turfgrass center in 2006 to develop
and provide turf grassinformation.
For the golf and sports turfindustry.
Let's talk to Micah.
Welcome Micah to the RealTurfText Podcast.

(00:49):
Thanks for coming on.

Micah Woods (00:51):
Thank you, Trent.
It is a pleasure to be here.

That is, I'm so excited.
I don't, and now that we'rerecording video for our podcast,
for all the listeners, make sureyou check it out on YouTube.
Yeah, you can see me smile.
I don't do that very often and Idon't get excited very often,
but I'm pretty excited aboutthis interview we got going
here.
So thank you so much for beinghere.

(01:15):
It's 7 PM in the Eastern timezone.
What time is it in your timezone?

It is six o'clock in the morning, a day earlier
than you in southern Thailand.

All right.
Awesome.
Very cool.
Tell us how you got into theturf industry.
Okay.

growing trees and growing flowers and vegetables
and stuff like that.
And I never realized, and Ienjoyed mowing the lawn and
stuff like that too.
But I never realized that therewas a job taking care of golf
courses.
I just played golf.
And I remember.
The question that I had was, howdo they decide when it's time to

(02:06):
mow fairways again?
I'm like how can they, it's sucha big area on the golf course.
I thought like there must be achart or a big blackboard or
something in the maintenanceshop where they kept track of,
okay, this fairway has been mownand this one's not mown yet.
I I have that kind of thought.
And.
I was just playing golf.

(02:27):
And then I finished high schooland tried an office job for a
while.
And I was like, wow, I reallydon't like that.
I had this idea that I was goingto be a business person somehow.
And that, that once you get outof school, you go work in an
office and that's somehow fun.
And it was not fun at all.

(02:48):
I was matching.
Purchase requests to work ordersand bills of lading and stuff
like that.
And it was, it was not veryexciting.
so I went to work on a golfcourses as a caddy and I'd
caddied for a few months.
This was at Waverly country clubin Portland, Oregon.

(03:08):
And then in the autumn, that wasthrough the summer.
And then in the autumn, I heardthrough the internal grapevine
at the golf course that therewas a.
Position open on maintenance.
And here's something that wassuch a natural fit for me, but
I.
Never realized that wassomething that matched with
things that I enjoyed doingbecause I played golf without

(03:31):
any thought of how you take careof the golf course.
And so anyway, I talked to mydad and he said, yeah, that
would be good working forRichard Schwabauer.
He's a famous superintendent.
He's a nice guy.
That would be a great thing foryou to do.
And maybe.
That's going to be somethingthat's going to give you
something that you'd enjoy doingin your life as a, as work.

(03:51):
And so I moved from being acaddy to going to work at the
maintenance shop.
And that was just like, yeah,within the very first day, you
know, fixing divots on teaspicking up leaves, um,
eventually getting into mowing.
That it was just something thatI really enjoyed.

That's so cool.
And I think there's so manypeople in this industry that
started just like that.
And I know me personally, that'show I started.
Yeah, I started working at thegolf course, doing what people
do on their first days at thegolf course, using a backpack
blower, raking bunkers, youknow, all those things.

and I think it's so cool some of the initiatives now
with FFA and with um, with thosetype of outreach and awareness
programs of letting kids knowthat this is a safe space.
And there are good opportunitiesto have a job that a lot of

(04:53):
people enjoy.
And, you know, it's not foreveryone, but it certainly was
for me and a lot of my friendsand you.
And then it's something that weget to work with our hands.
We get to be outdoors.
We can, sometimes we're indoors.
It changes with the season and,um, and there's a real reward

(05:14):
that we get from seeing.
The efforts of the team that,um, all work together to produce
the good results.
There's some real satisfactionthat can come from seeing that
as a team, we've achieved somegood results.
And I know where you are inAtlanta, that's not an easy
place to produce good turfconditions.

(05:35):
There's a lot of weed pressure.
There's dormant grass that getstraffic on it.
Then there's sometimes of theyear where the grass is growing
so fast, you know, it's, I don'tknow how we keep up with the
mowing.
I worked at all Bermuda courseat old Waverly in Mississippi
and West Point, Mississippi.
I worked there in the summer of1996 and man, I don't know how

(05:56):
we kept up with all the mowing,with all that Bermuda grass.
Cause yeah.
So, so sometimes you're justlike working so hard on one
thing and then other timesyou're working hard on, on
something else.
But then you achieve the resultsand there is a huge satisfaction
that comes from that.

Well, that reminds me.
So when I first started, we had,so it was a really nice course
that I worked at and it wassetting down Creek golf club.
And it was before Ainsley boughtsetting down Creek.
And it was a small membership,less than 200 members, but it
was, you know, an exclusive cluband really nice conditions.

(06:34):
But we had a small budget and wehad a small crew and the things
that we were able to accomplishand have the course present
itself so well and play so welland So in the mid nineties, in
95, we had the Nike tourchampionship and in 96, we had

(06:57):
the Nike tour championship andyou know, with a small crew and
making a really good product.
I mean, it was just superrewarding and you're talking
about that kind of reminds me ofthat story and how much pride we
took in what we did.
And, you know, I was a youngkid, but.
We took it serious and we had alot of fun to goofing off, you

(07:20):
know, and doing things thatteenagers do.
Um, and I would recommend it toany teenager.
And like you're saying, maybeit's not for everybody, but
spend one summer at the golfcourse and see if you like it or
not.
And who knows what's like,that's going to lead to.

Yeah.
I look back on it and I'm like,how did I never realize that
this is something that you cando as a profession.
And it's not just like you'reonly landscape worker.
That's just running a backpackblower and pushing a mower
around, but there's more to itthan that.
Then you look in the on theequipment management side.

(07:58):
I don't know how much an entirefleet of equipment costs these
days, but that's.
It's a lot of complicatedequipment as a huge investment
and you can be managing that Andyou look at the value of a golf
course look at the price of anirrigation system these days
look at how?
detailed some of the Newtechnologies are with with, you

(08:23):
know, they're doing satelliteimaging sometimes or drones, you
know, to look at stress on theturf and GPS sprayers, all this
kind of new technology stuffthat I haven't operated yet.
Um, but I know it's things thatpeople are saying, yeah, this is
awesome.
I can spray at night.
It's odd.
It's got auto steer.
This is stuff that.

(08:45):
Is really interesting and it'ssomething that I think we should
make sure that people who havethe potential to work in this
industry, possible interest towork in this industry, they
should be more aware of it.

Oh, yeah, for sure.
And I do think all thistechnology or I'm hopeful that
all this technology will bringin younger people to our
industry, you know, just likethe computer games and you know,
all these things, you know.

I was so surprised I was talking with Janne Leto
who's, I believe he's thepresident of the Finnish Green
Keepers Association.
I was in Finland last year andhe's at her solid golf in
Finland and we were talking andwe were talking about the
robotic mowers.
They have a lot.

(09:34):
They have their fairways arecompletely moaned by the small
robotic auto mowers and they'rerough at the time we talked last
year.
I think the rough was 80 percentor something like that was
moaned by those robotic automowers and we started talking
about the advantages and thedisadvantages of that type of

(09:54):
setup.
And of course, there's both, um,But for from Yanni's
perspective, it was mostly apositive and something I was
thinking about, how does thisaffect the grass?
How does it affect the golfplay?
How does it affect some of theyou know, just like how the
grass performs and, you know,compaction of the soil or being

(10:16):
able to mow in wet and stufflike that.
And of course we talked aboutall of that, but the thing that
really surprised me when wetalked is he said that.
Having those mowers allows himto attract people to work on the
golf course maintenance teamthat he thinks would otherwise
not want to work in thatbusiness.

(10:38):
He, you know, somebody doesn'twant to come and work outside
and rake bunkers all day.
But when you tell them that youcan be a robotics technician and
you're going to be responsiblefor managing.
And maintaining and checking theoperation of this fleet of 30 or
40 robotic mowers, he said he,he was able to attract people

(11:01):
who are really excited aboutdoing that kind of work and it,
That was a surprise to me, but,um, that was the first time I
heard that.
I've subsequently heard thatfrom a few other people that,
that there are people that,that's really attractive to
them.
And they're like, wow I wouldlove to do that kind of work
where if you tell somebody youcan come you know, walk, mow

(11:22):
greens and rake bunkers whileyou're doing it and get to work
outside and all kinds ofweather.
That's perhaps a lot lessattractive.
So.

Yeah, I would definitely think so.
And it just reminds me when Ifirst started there on the golf
course, we walk my teas and ourteas were really small and we
had three routes, a, b, and croute.
You walk from the shop is youknow, that's a clubhouse at one
t basically.
And you had to walk to and startat 12 t and you had the back

(11:53):
nine and you walked from t to t.
And it was the most miserableroute.
Like usually if you had donesomething bad, you got C Route.
And I don't know if I was a bademployee, but I got C Route
enough and to realize I reallydidn't like that.
But like you say, I think that'sawesome that people are

(12:13):
interested in working on a golfcourse because we have robotic
stuff.
And I've heard good things frommembership too.
I think the members like to seethe robots out running around.
They're like, Oh, that's neat.
Oh, that's cool.

As I've seen these used more and more, the thing
that I really like is the lownoise or, um, you know, they're
just so quiet.
And I think sometimes because ofour, you know, Our experience
working on golf courses.
It's normal to, for us to hear adiesel engine operating a couple

(12:49):
of fairways over, it's normalfor us to hear that leaf blower
firing up on the other nineholes.
It's normal for us who've beenaround golf for a long time to
hear that sand pro making hisway back to the shop.
And there's all these noises.
Now, of course you notice itwhen you go out on the golf
course and start trying to shootvideo or recording an interview
or something, all of a suddenit's like.

(13:10):
Well, wait a second.
They need to turn that machineoff.
We need to get it quieter outhere.
You don't, if you don't.
But we just kind of take it forgranted that there's these
noises.
We don't even notice them untilthey disappear.
And then when they disappear,and that happens when you've got
these electric machines outthere and those little robotic
mowers that are just doing theirjob.

(13:32):
Silently.
really cool because then you canhear more of the birds.
You can have an easierconversation with your friends
that you're out there with.
Or if you're doing other work tome, it's just it's pleasant to
see that machine is just doingits job.
I can do my job and it's notdisturbing me with any type of
noise.

No, I think that's great.
And I think I am for, you know,I'm just one of those humans
that's really sensitive tonoises for some reason.
And I mean, I'm an equipmentmanager, so yeah, I'm working
around loud stuff all the time.
But if there's a chance to turnoff that loud thing, I'm going
to turn it off.
You know, I mean, there'snothing I dislike more than

(14:11):
trying to talk over a piece ofequipment.
For, you know, whatever thereason is, just turn it off.
We'll start it back up.

Yeah.
And that's something that Ithink it's terrific.
And I think we've all beenfamiliar with some areas on a
golf course that might be closeto somebody's home and they
don't like to hear machinesrunning at four 30 or five in
the morning.
Um, and we would think, well,you know, you bought the house
knowing that there's a golfcourse there.

(14:39):
You should know that there'sgoing to be some golf course
preparation noise is going tohappen.
But it.
If you have the ability to runelectric machines through there,
um, that, that's just, it's, itsolves that problem.

Yeah.
We've just recently at ourmidtown course bought quite a
bit of electric handheldequipment.
So blowers and weed eaters, Ithink we even got a chainsaw and
that stuff, this came a long wayand it's amazing.
Like you said, it's so quiet andwe have an order.
Noise ordinance on the weekendsinside the city limits of

(15:18):
Atlanta.
We can't make noise till 9 a.
m Well normally golfers want totee off before 9 a.
m.
So, you know, it's a struggle toget the course prepared

Wow.
Can you tell me more about that?
Within the city of Atlanta, Ican't go run a gasoline powered
walking greens mower before 9am?
Is that is

that is true Yes, and the way we kind of get
around that is some of our holesare further away from houses So
we start there and then we kindof work towards the houses and
we try to be really friendlywith all our neighbors.

(16:02):
So none of them are mad at us.
But like you say, you wouldthink if you buy a house on a
golf course that maybe there'ssome noise out there, but I
think a lot of people areunaware.

Yeah, I kind of like I was unaware that there is
actually a nice career to be haddoing this type of work.
And I'd been around golf for along time and play to spend a
lot of time on golf courses.
And it was just oblivious to me.
I wasn't aware of it at alluntil that first day I was

(16:35):
working on a golf course.

Yeah.
And for me, I never played golfor anything like that as a kid
or a younger person.
But it was my best friend inhigh school.
He lived next door to themechanic at the golf course.
And so, you know, the mechanichad told his parents, Oh, we'll
give him a job.
You know, we're always lookingfor summer help.

(16:58):
So he gets a job there and thenext week I get a job there
along with another one of ourfriends.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, you know, and it was good.
It was a good time.
Where are the three stages?
Destroying equipment around agolf course.
Ever mechanics nightmare.
Yeah.
Young people on expensive turfequipment.

I hate to see an expensive rough mower getting
operated at what seems to melike 120 percent of the proper
operating speed and it's justflying through the rough doing
and it's not cutting all thegrass and it's just, bouncing
and the cutting units are justbouncy.
You can hear the rattling andI'm like, what is this person

(17:39):
doing?
And it's not just young people,but like any operator that's
operating the machine at the toorapid of a speed.
Yeah, that's one of my petpeeves actually.

love it.
I'm right there

I'm not an equipment manager, but I'm like,
man, you got to make thatmachine last.
You got to cut the grassproperly.
You got to be safe.
Um, what are you doing?

One, I've never understood this because most of
these positions are hourlypositions and it seems like the
employee is in such a hurry.
to get finished with that job.
And I don't, I've never reallyunderstood that.
No,

I suppose it's just training and training and a team
You know, if get everybody onthe team to understand what the
desired goal is, um, which is toget a lot of work done, but to
do every job right and realizewhat the limits are.
We're working fast or working asfast as you can still has a
limit.

(18:44):
You know, you can't go do holechanging and just say, well,
we're going to skip three holesbecause we need to hurry up and
finish.
Like, like you can't do that.
And you can't set the hole andput everything in like.
Sideways and not fixing the oldplug and stuff like that.
You can't do that.
So there's an upper, or I mean,there's a certain limit on how

(19:06):
fast you can go.
And I think with mowing andequipment operation and
anything, if everybody on theteam understands what the limit
is on how fast we could go.
And I suppose that's justsomething that, that you
discover that when you find it'snot working well, and then you
do another reminder session andjust keep working at it, I
suppose.

I think that is a really good point.
And I think it's lack oftraining most of the time at
most courses, because I know alot of places, they just put an
operator on a piece of equipmentand Here's the key.
This is the way you start it.
We'll see you later.
You're mowing rough, you know,and they don't give them much
direction.

(19:47):
And then while they're out thereoperating the equipment, they
don't give them much coachingon, you know, we'll slow down in
this area, be careful makingthese turns, you know, whatever
the coaching techniques are.
And, but it reminds me of whenI, the first time I ever mowed
fairways, I was trained byanother operator and that

(20:08):
operator.
The mower was a Toro 5100.
I don't know why I rememberthis, but it had a speedometer
on it.
And he says, never get over fourmiles an hour.
He said, if they see you getover four miles an hour, you'll
never mow fairways again.
And I thought, man, this is areal gravy job.
I do not want, I'm never goingover four miles an hour.

(20:31):
And so I didn't.
But I think you know it was thattraining that I had that no, I
don't want to mess this up Thisis a good job to have

Yeah, and yeah, I think it's training and you
know, everybody gets busy.
I'm sure there's people that,that are in the role that they
should be supervising or shouldbe training and then they feel
like they're short, they're notable to keep up with all of
that.
So it's not like completeneglect in most cases, I think,
but maybe people just aren'table to keep up with that.
But if you are, if you do haveenough staff and a really good

(21:05):
team of people.
It's interesting because I seeso many golf courses.
I don't play so much golf, butI'm I'm often traveling around
and I'm on golf courses.
And you see some places where,you know, there's 18 people and
the shop is pretty big.
Is really well organized and theequipment is well maintained and

(21:26):
everybody that you see out thereoperating looks like they are
cross trained really well ableto operate any equipment.
Well, Well, and you go to someother places and it's more of a
disorganized operation and theequipment may not be as well
maintained and you see peoplemaybe not operating things as

(21:50):
well as at that other place.
And what is it that causes thatdifference?
Is it only one person?
I mean, is it only the equipmentmanager or only the golf course
superintendent?
Or is it only the budget?
Um, I don't know.
I don't know what it is, but tome it's a team and it takes
everybody.
So you need a good leader, butyou need good people that are

(22:12):
going to support that.
You know, leader also and youneed the budget to make sure
that you have the rightequipment for the right job.
And then you also need to havethe equipment maintenance budget
to take care of it.
And so, you know, how youestablish that, I don't know,
but I definitely see that theoutcome is some places run
pretty smoothly.

(22:33):
Other places don't.

My opinion is I think it's mostly boils down to
superintendent or director ofagronomy and Having a really
good leader and I agree Yes, youdo need a really good team to go
behind that leader, but I dothink it kind of starts at the
top And I do think it's reallyhard to change the culture that

(22:59):
is set up at a lot ofmaintenance facilities, you
know, around the world.
I'm sure where people areneglectful of equipment and
everything else.
So, you know, everything looksin disarray.
So you walk into work and you'realready in a bad mood because
the appearance of the wayeverything looks and I've heard
guys and gals talk about thattoo.

(23:21):
If.
a piece of equipment looks brandnew, maybe an operator will take
a little bit better care of thatpiece of equipment because of
the way it looks.
You know, if it looks like apiece of junk, they're probably
gonna treat it like a piece ofjunk.

Yeah.
I would think that there'ssomething to that.

All right, we've probably bored everybody enough
about what we think aboutoperator training.
So I want to get to the meat andpotatoes of what I really wanted
to, I want to learn aboutclipping yield.
And why do you collect clippingyield?

Well, I was aware of this for a long time.
I was a golf coursesuperintendent in Japan in the
years 2000 and 2001 before Iwent to graduate school.
And there were Containers thatwe would use to put grass
clippings in after the greenswere mown I didn't really pay

(24:18):
any attention to it But I knewthat we were doing that and that
we could report that to my bossand we knew how much the grass
was growing, but I wasn't soexcited about it because it's
leaders It's a volume, you know,so a leader is about a court And
I'm like what use is the volume?
I just wanted, I just caredabout how the grass looked and
what the quality of cut lookedlike and how the ball rolled and

(24:41):
whether there was disease ornot.
That's what I cared at thattime.
And then I went to grad schooland I studied about turf grass
science and.
And I've read a lot ofscientific articles and every
time the grass yield wasmeasured, it's always the dry
matter of the leaves.
So, so you take the clippingsand you dry them and then you

(25:03):
express it as, you know, poundsper thousand square feet of dry
material or kilograms perhectare or grams per square
meter of dry material.
Definitely not a volume.
Definitely not a volume.
So I was going.
Through my work and doing mywhat I do, and I was aware of

(25:24):
these two things that yield issomething that's dry matter per
area, and I knew that there'speople that actually do measure
the clippings, um.
So it goes beyond just lookingin the basket and seeing or
counting the number of times youhave to empty the baskets.
And it goes beyond just, um,reaching in, putting some
clippings in your hand andlooking at the quality of cut

(25:47):
or, you know, how much debris isin there or whatever people were
measuring.
So, um, in 2013, I was workingat a golf tournament in Japan
and.
The green speed was gettingfaster and faster through the
week.
And at that golf course inJapan, they were measuring the
clipping volume.
And I noticed, wow, the clippingvolumes going down every day.

(26:11):
And at the same time, the greenspeeds going up now at that golf
course, which is Kea golf club.
The reason that they aremeasuring the clipping volume is
not, it was not to look at greenspeed.
It was not to do what I like todo now, which is estimate
nutrient harvest or look at howmuch the grass grows over the

(26:32):
course of a season.
They wanted to check that allthe mowers were cutting the same
amount of clippings.
And so, they've got a sheet.
And I don't have a image of thathandy that I can show, but
they've got a sheet that theoperators go in and write down
the volume of clippings fromeach green.

(26:54):
And every green has two cells,two cells on this sheet that
they can write in.
So it's a spreadsheet that'sbeen printed out.
One, one of those cells orboxes, you put the leaders of
clippings and the other cell,you put down your mower number.
Okay.
So, so it'd be like 26.
Eleven.

(27:14):
And I was always trying to,cause it's in Japanese.
And so, um, the numbers ofcourse are, I can read, but so
the column and row labels, Icouldn't quite read.
So I had to double check like,which one is the leaders and
which one is the mower number?
Cause I don't care about themower number.
I just care about the leaders,but they use that to check and

(27:35):
make sure that the mowers areall.
Getting approximately the sameamount of clippings.
And so that's what the originaluse was.
And that I think, um, it's agood check because it turned
out, I think the next year, um,at that golf course, they had a,
they have an annual tournamentevery August, they had their own

(27:58):
machines.
Um, this Shibaura walking mower.
It's a 22 inch G slash E X Efixed head mower.
And the they've got their ownreels that had been ground a few
times, and then they had theloaner machines where the reel

(28:21):
had either It had been groundonce or something.
So it had a different reeldiameter Basically the clipping
volume, exact same cuttingheight the clipping volume was
double on, I believe the I can'tremember, but it has something
to do with the behind centerdistance and the, Um, the amount

(28:42):
of grab, and so, so this iswhere I feel like I don't have
the the vocabulary or theunderstanding of what I'm
talking about to to explain it.
But I think you know what I'mtalking about, where a different
reel diameter is going to catcha different amount of grass.

Yes, unless well, I don't, yeah, I think it's
always going to be differentwith different diameter, but the
one thought I was having, soToro, when they come out with
the DPA cutting unit andbasically I think the patent was

(29:20):
like 99, but it came out, youknow, around 99, 2000.
And in that patent, they saidthat the behind center distance
would stay consistent throughoutthe life of the reel, which a
new reel is five inches indiameter, and their Toro spec
for a worn out reel is four anda half inches in diameter.

(29:43):
But the pivot point of where thebed bar rotates is at a higher
location.
And on a Toro, you're moving thefront roller up to lower the
height of cut, which you wouldbe doing because your reel is
getting smaller diameter.
So it helps keep it prettyconsistent, but they're the only

(30:07):
ones that do that.
And then, and I don't rememberwhen it was, maybe mid two
thousands or 08, somewhere inthere, John Deere came out with
an eccentric that you can flip,which changes the pivot point of
the bed knife to reestablish thebehind center distance.

(30:29):
Because on the John Deere, yournormal how to cut change is the
rear roller, and your behindcenter distance decreases as the
reel is wearing.
So they moved their pivot pointup.
So, yeah, I mean, there's a lotof stuff going on here.

National golf club for the U S amateur this year
and had a really good talk withAustin, right?
The equipment manager up there.
And I said, something I don'tunderstand.
I said, I thought you can onlymow like, you know, an eighth of
an inch or, you know, yourcutting height can only be just
a little bit under an eighth ofan inch.
Um, but like at some point thebed knife gets so.

(31:09):
Like, like you, I hear peopletalk about these mowing heights.
That sounds to me like that'salmost thinner than the bed
knife or I mean, it's shorterthan the bed knife thickness.
I'm like I can't understand howyou can actually mow like that
at those heights, I'm like, whatis the real limit?
And he said, that's not reallythe way that you need to think
about it.
He said cause the real actuallycomes below the effective mowing

(31:33):
height.
As it's spinning around and hesaid that's the clearance.
So I think that's the word thathe was using is you need to be
more worried about the groundclearance.
And I think that's something todo with this issue that we saw
in Japan, where one of the reelswas cutting.
Or one of the set of machineswith a certain real diameter was
cutting twice as much grass isit's is how much is going down

(31:56):
into the canopy and grabbingthat grass before it comes up
and cuts it at the bed knifethat set exactly the same height
on each machine and so, um,Austin helped me to understand,
the bench setting for cuttingheight is something that you
want to pay attention to.

(32:17):
It's not the thing thatnecessarily defines what the
real effective mowing heightwill actually be.

Oh yeah.
100 100%.
So, and our industry term,that's a whole nother probably
podcast.
And this is my agenda to getdone in the next few years.
Is I really think the industryterms for cutting unit set up

(32:46):
needs to be addressed tosomewhat get us all on the same
page because there's some newterms coming about that need to
be cleared up and then some ofthe older terms we need to
define better.
Um, so we'll work on that, but,what I was getting at is you

(33:07):
have actual height of cut.
So that's how tall the grassactually is after it's cut.
And then you have your bench setRight?
So that's what we do in theshop.
And just like Austin's saying,um, so for instance, on a Toro
DPA, they have a spacer you canadd to the rear roller.

(33:30):
If you add that spacer, thatincreases the behind center
distance of the bed, front faceof the bed knife.
So you can add that spacer, setyour high to cut at 125.
Take the same reel with nospacer, set your high to cut at
125, and the reel with thespacer is going to get a lot

(33:52):
more clippings.
Because the behind centerdistance is greater and you have
more real blade in the canopy ofthe turf

And that, yeah, that That's the kind of thing
that I think we can't reallylearn enough about.
I mean, I mean, we, I agree withyou.
It's really good to standardizethe terminology, understand
what's important and then teacheverybody in the industry about
this.
So then we can communicate.
Clearly.
And whether we're talking to thethe machinery manufacturers rep,

(34:27):
or whether we're talking to theequipment manager, or whether
we're explaining something to anew employee, everybody's got
the same as close as possible.
Everybody has the same mentalimage about what's really going
on.
I think that would be good.

One case in point on this and this is one that
really gets me so Toro they comeout with you know Aftercut
appearance that is a PDFdocument to help end users
troubleshoot after cutappearance.
And one of the after cutappearance issues that can arise
is called, Toro calls itbobbing.

(35:07):
And that's when the front of thefront roller, there's a
resistance to roll and theactual rear of the cutting unit
picks up.
And So you get a wave likepattern in the turf and that
wave like pattern the waves areroughly eight to 10 inches apart

(35:29):
because that's how far therollers are apart.
And so Toro calls that bobbing.
John Deere calls it marcelling.
And I've heard marcellingthroughout the years.
You know, when I first started,I heard marcelling.
And it's the washboard.
Some people call it washboard.
That's fine.
I don't care what you call it,but we all need to have, you

(35:53):
know, understand that all thoseare the same thing because the
other difference is I've heardpeople Toro calls clip marks
where they're one inch apart andthat's when you're real is not
spending fast enough.

Yeah, and that to me, that's what I, when I see
something that's that close, andit looks like the reel's not
grabbing all the grass.
So, so you've got grass that'scut, grass that's not cut, grass
that's cut, and it's, and itthat's what I would have called
marcelling.
Um, but that's nothing to do, Ithink, With the roller lifting

(36:33):
up and coming back down.
It's not an eight to 10 inchwave.
I would have called Markselling.
If you like driving too fast, ifthe ground speed is too fast and
you're the real is not able tocut all the grass.
So yeah, that is something thatmaybe my terminology is wrong,
or just maybe as an

Well, no I've, that's, I guess that's my point.
I want to standardize thatsomehow or another because I
have heard people just describejust like you're describing the
reel not turning fast enough orthe mower moving too fast to be
more selling.
But I've also and Toro callsthat clip marks because your

(37:15):
frequency of clip is not.
At the right level.

Interesting.
Interesting.

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(37:44):
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tracker.com.
Let's get back to the episode

So, so, so back to the clipping yield or clipping
volume.

Yeah.
Sorry.
Got sidetracked there.

That meanders a little bit that's interesting.
So the the the interest that Ihad in it initially was to do
with green speed because I sawthat the less the grass was
growing in, at the fewerclippings that were harvested,
the the faster the green speedor the.

(38:24):
The longer distance the ballrolled.
So I thought, well, that'sreally good.
So next year for thistournament, why don't you try to
manage your fertilizer andgrowth regulator and make sure
you've cut the greens enough sothat as you come into tournament
week, why don't we try to hit onMonday of tournament week what
you were out on Sunday of thefinal round the previous year,

(38:46):
because it's like now we've gota number that we're shooting
for.
Of how much grass we'd becutting off.
And I thought that should giveus a consistent green speed.
I also thought, well, let's makesure that the greens are
consistent from green to green.
So that should lead to more andimproved, consistency of green
speed, which is what the stintmeter is supposed to be all

(39:08):
about anyway, is making surethat you have consistent ball
roll across the property.
And so I was interested in thatand then I realized, wait a
second, you know, that clippingyield thing that I learned about
in school, the stuff thatscientists study about how much
the grass actually grows.
That's the dry weight.
What if it's consistent enough?

(39:31):
When you dry the clippings, whatif a certain volume of clippings
tends to have a certain weight?
So in 2014, 2015, 2016 in Japanand in Thailand with some co
operators at research institutesand with a company's research
facility and with the golfcourse superintendent in
Thailand we sent some clippingsof known volume.

(39:54):
And we dry them in drying ovens,and we checked how much they
weighed.
And it's a bit of variation, butthere is some consistency in, on
average, in how much a certainvolume of clippings will weigh.
And subsequently, at theUniversity of Wisconsin, there
was some research done, and theyfound a very similar number to

(40:17):
what we'd measured in Japan andin Thailand.
And so now as a researcher, I'mlike, wow, now that we know the
dry weight, we can measure likeover the course of a year, if we
measure the clippings every timeand we know what the volume is,
we can now know how much thegrass grew this year.

(40:37):
Well, if you know how much thegrass grew this year, don't you
think that the grass grows twiceas much?
It's going to need twice as muchtop dressing sand.
To keep the organic matterdiluted, because you want to
keep that consistent matrix ofgrass and organic matter
production and then dilute itwith sand.
It goes in the other directiontoo.

(40:58):
If you grow the grass a thirdslower this year than the
previous year, you should beable to reduce your clipping
sorry, reduce your sand by 33%.
And that extends to fertilizertoo.
If the grass grows half as much,it used half as much potassium.
Thank you.
If the grass grew half as much,it used half as much calcium.
So the nutrient supply should beproportional to that.

(41:20):
So I realized in the firstcouple of years of getting
excited about this, which wasabout a decade ago, it's like,
wow, this is related to greenspeed, top dressing, organic
matter management.
And nutrient requirement andit's just related to overall
consistency of the surface andit's very obviously related to

(41:43):
mower setup or mower consistencyfrom machine to machine.
And I'll tell you it was a hardsell for me to get people to
want to do this becauseeverybody feels like they're
doing it already.
Because they're like, I, youknow, I've been doing this for
years and I check the clippingsevery day, but they're not
measuring it.

(42:03):
They're just looking at it butthere's a difference.
There's a difference inprecision.
We actually empty the clippingsinto a bucket and look at the
volume.
And a lot of people are like,well, can't we get a meter for
that?
It sounds pretty crude to dumpit into a bucket.
Like there must be some kind ofsensor that we can use.
And I think eventually therewill be, but I've not found

(42:25):
anything yet.
This is consistent and isfoolproof.
It's just dumping the clippingsinto a bucket and measuring it.
And then, um, so, so the thingthat everybody notices, and this
happens at It happened atHazeltine National.
They found differences betweenmachines.
And it happened at Kalir GolfClub in Reykjavik, near

(42:48):
Reykjavik in Iceland.
They, within the first month ofdoing this.
They found differencedifferences between machines in
setup that they're able to thenfix the problem or fix the
inconsistency that theyotherwise wouldn't have noticed.
And it leads over time to moreconsistent cut.
And that's something that peoplenotice.

(43:10):
I mean, everybody tends tonotice this and then it's
something that they can checkfor, um, so, so, but it was a
hard sell because people, yeah,I remember in 2017, I gave a
talk in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
It was to a golf coursesuperintendent association like

(43:30):
a tri societies.
I think it was Idaho Montana andmaybe Eastern Washington area
something like that peaks andprairies

Okay.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.

GCSA a couple of those and Yeah, there must be
150, 200 people there at thismeeting and I'm giving a talk
about clipping volume.
I'm like, okay, here's somethingI think is really useful.
How many people can anybodyraise their hand of anybody
that's doing this?
And you just see like, you know,everybody still keeps their
hands on their laps and youknow, nobody's raising their

(44:04):
hand.
I'm like, Oh, this could be atough audience.
But I think, um, It is somethingthat eventually people come
around to.
And if you're not doing thisyet, I would encourage you to do
it because it provides so muchuseful, actionable information.
And the type of, um, feedbackthat I get from people who do

(44:26):
this once they get started, theysay, man, this is so useful.
It's more useful than I thoughtit would be.
I can't believe I haven't beendoing this my whole career or I
wish I'd been doing it my wholecareer because you want to know
like back in 2006 when the grasswas really struggled through the
summer or something you wonderwas that how fast was it

(44:47):
growing?
How much did it grow thatsummer?
And now you have that.
You can look at it It's just, tome it's just a useful number for
all kinds of reasons.

No, that's yeah, really good stuff.
And so personally at my club, wedon't do it.
Um, I'm definitely no otherclubs that do.
And I consider Austin right.
A really good friend.
Um, I was lucky enough to workwith him.
We volunteered together advanceweek for the 100th PGA at Belle

(45:22):
Reef in 2018.
And that's how I got to knowAustin and we've been friends
ever since.
But back to your point, and wewere kind of talking about the
Toro DPA and put a spacer on oneand not on the other and set
them at the same height.
So a friend of mine told me thatthey did this by accident.

(45:43):
You know, it happens sometimeson a triplex and they said they
got double the clipping yieldoff the one with the spacers.
Cause it was a more aggressivesetup, but you know, they didn't
catch the mistake until they sawthe clipping yield.
So they start saying, Hey, whyis this mower getting double the

(46:05):
amount Versus the other mowerand that was why so I definitely
think that's something Veryinteresting and great, you know
feedback for what the piece ofequipment is doing also

Yeah, I think it would be so nice.
I've talked with Eric Johnson,who's the director of agronomy
at Chambers Bay in Tacoma,Washington.
And I've talked with him aboutthis.
Cause they measure clippingvolume and he's like, can't we
get it set up in some kind ofapp where the operator can put

(46:41):
in the clipping volume almostimmediately after they measure
it.
So you could get a snapshot.
Of what's going on immediately.
So you could, let's say you'vegot two mowers out, or let's say
you've got four mowers out, youcan check their consistency
almost immediately because somepeople don't realize that we

(47:04):
adjust this by area.
So you know that this green is5, 647 square feet.
This other green is 7, 222square feet.
Um, you divide the volume by thearea and it standardizes it on a
per square meter basis or a perthousand square foot basis.
And so, so once you do thatstandards standardization you're

(47:27):
able to compare directly.
And I know I talked to BjarneHannesen in Iceland about this
also.
And it seems like something thatwould be really nice to put into
some kind of app where you couldcheck in real time and it's
going to flag for you.
Real quickly, like this mowersseems to be cutting 20 percent

(47:49):
more.
And of course you have a lot ofnatural variability out there.
You do have some greens that arein shade that might be growing
more than greens that are infull sun because grass that's in
shade, it tends to, I think thetechnical word is at the elation
where the leaf extends more,cause it, it has a different
hormone balance in the plant andit's trying to.

(48:10):
It's not trying, but it'ssomehow that's how it grows when
it's growing in more shade, theleaves get longer because it's
trying to reach some light.
Um, and so you surprisingly willfind.
more clipping volume sometimesfrom shaded greens.
So you've got that kind ofnatural variation, but you can
put those bounds of normallywe'd expect this type of

(48:33):
variation.
And then if you actually weremeasuring after two greens had
been cut by mower number 12,then it's saying, whoa, this one
is even, it's outside the normalbounds.
This is cutting 30 percent more.
Then the other machine, you canquickly go check that before,

(48:53):
um, before things continue.
And it's something that, that wecan't really see with our naked
eye, but the simple measurementof clipping volume allows us to
catch some of this.
And then the idea is it's notjust finding problems, but it's
finding, okay, how do we makethis more consistent?
How do we make sure that, that.
That is more consistent becauseI think in the long run, it's

(49:16):
going to lead to grass that'shealthier grass that looks
better grass that plays betterfor golf or, you know, I think
this is applicable to football,soccer, you know, baseball, any
type of sports turf, but I thinkit's more common right now in
golf.

Yeah.
No, that makes, I mean, a ton ofsense.
And I mean, honestly, I wouldlike to collect clippings just
for that reason.
So I would know how my mower isperforming and potential set up
issues with that mower and ifone mower is getting 30 percent
more volume than another, thatcouldn't lead to a consistent

(49:56):
putting surface.
I wouldn't think.
You know, I would think it wouldbe different.
Oh,

we're trying to make it as perfect as possible
and because we're growing in achallenging growing environment,
I think you know, if you're inAtlanta in the summer, whether
you've got ultra dwarf orwhether you've got bent grass
that's some pretty extremegrowth.
Growing conditions.
It's high heat during the day.
It's humidity and thunderstormsand saturated soils and high

(50:29):
heat at night and diseasepressure and all this stuff who
wants, whether you're thesuperintendent or the assistant
or the equipment manager or thegreens committee chairman who
wants to allow discrepancies inthe way the.
The clipping volume is comingoff the greens that one green

(50:50):
might be getting 30 percent moregrass off of it.
And if you think like you runthat same machine on the same
route, and if you don't catchthat, then the next day you cut
30 percent more off that nextgreen, off that same green.
The next day you cut 30 percentmore off that green.
And, In one day, I don't knowthat we'd notice a huge
difference, but it could be thatcumulative effect that the

(51:13):
greens that get more cut off ofthem might be better or they
might be worse.
But what we don't want thatdiscrepancy between greens.
We want it all consistent sothat we can manage it better.

for sure.
And I know a lot of courses theyget in a routine, so they might
send mower 12, as you said, toit mows one, three, eight, 13,
you know, it mows the same routeevery day, that same mower.
And if there's an issue withthat mower and it's getting that

(51:49):
much more every time over aweek.
Yeah Who

Yeah, and there's things that are unique to
everybody's property and the waythat their grass grows, the way
that they're growing environmentis the way that their machines
are and what the What they andthe way the operators do the
work and I think you would findat your facility, if you have
the clipping volume data, youstart to find things of like,

(52:15):
oh, we could do this better, wecould make this a little bit
more consistent, or this issomething that happens twice a
year, let's make sure it doesn'thappen.
During our club championship andthose are, I mean, that, that
situation I described of theloaner mowers, which are
basically brand new machinescoming from the, manufacturer

(52:38):
and they had like six machineswere the clubs machines that
were mowing grains and sixmachines that were the loaner
machines mowing grains.
And I think the clubs machineswere cutting twice as much grass
because they had a differentangle of attack from more behind
center distance, or they havewhatever, again, I lose the
terminology, but it was cuttingtwice as much grass during a

(53:00):
professional tournament.
And if you send those samemachines out and you cut twice
as much grass, eventually you'regoing to lead with, have
something that looks differenton TV or you know, the ball's
going to roll different in theafternoon and you have all kinds
of inconsistencies.
The only way they caught thatwas by Measuring the clipping
volume because it's during atournament.

(53:23):
They're not getting so manyclippings.
So you just would look in thebasket and say, yeah, there's
not a lot of clippings.
We're not getting a lot ofclippings today.
That would be the normal way to,to kind of explain it.
But when you actually measure itand say, well, these greens all
got.
Two liters of clippings andthose other grains on average
got four liters of clippings.

(53:43):
If you look at it with your eye,it's not a lot of clippings.
We're just, you know, we don'thave to empty the basket on this
green.
It's just the bottom of thebasket gets filled, but in
reality it's twice as muchgrass.
Yeah.
So

like you're saying at a professional
tournament where those fixedhead mowers.

fixed head mowers.

Yep.
So in my experience and whatI've learned, so me and some
colleagues have been doingextensive testing on behind
center distance and what happensto the behind center distance
throughout the life of the reel.
But what we've seen on fixedhead mowers is normally, The

(54:23):
smaller the diameter, the moreaggressive it is.
So the greater the behind thecenter distance is of the real.
So it's gathering more grass.

And that's something,

that tracks, and I don't think a lot of people
understand that.
I think there's very few in theindustry that understand that.

that's something that I had absolutely no idea
about because I thought that itwas all about cutting height.
And making sure that the moweris adjusted to cut the grass
cleanly, and then that themowing height that, or, you
know, the bench setting is setjust at three millimeters or 0.

(55:04):
11 inches or whatever.
I thought that's all there wasto it.
To it in terms of this is whatthe goal should be, but it turns
out there's a lot more to it.
There's the behind centerdistance and the real diameter
that's associated with that.
And then that it could lead tosuch a difference.
Now I know it and I'm I'll neverforget it.

(55:25):
And I still don't know how to goadjust the mower.
I don't know how to go measurethose kinds of things, but I
know how to talk.
about it with people to say,Hey, let's make sure that we've
got the same real diameter andeverything set up the same.
If we've got machines ofdifferent age, um, going out to,
to cut.

And the other thing I think that's
counterintuitive is that reelwears the bed knife.
You know, you're constantlymoving it up, if you will.
So the attitude, as we know it,that angle of attack of the bed
knife is decreasing.
And we've always been taught ifthe attitude decreases,

(56:09):
aggression decreases.
But that's not true in a fixedhead mower.
The attitude is less, but theaggression is more because you
got a greater behind centerdistance.

Oh yeah.
So the real is coming down infront of the bed knife and it's
being more aggressive andcutting more into the canopy,
but then, and then the bed knifewill start scraping.
You could do all kinds of badthings to the grass.
You got the real being moreaggressive and the back of the
bed knife, potentially, if you,if, as you go really low, it
could be

Yeah, dragon, yeah, or, yeah, skating,
floating, whatever, yeah,whatever you want to call it.
Yeah that's good stuff.

So, so then something that's kind of led
from those initial things that Iwas interested in with clipping
volume.
Um, in 2019, I was at a golfcourse in Thailand and.
It was Tiff Eagle, Ultradorf,Bermudagrass Greens, and I was
doing some stint metermeasurements, and I was talking
to the pro who's from the UK,and he's played on the Asian

(57:16):
tour, and he said, you know, thegreens aren't quite as good as
they used to be.
And he's like, I can't quiteExplain it.
The speed is still good, buthe's like just the way it rolls.
It's not quite up to thestandard that we've had at this
club in the past, and I couldsee it with my eyes.
The ball was rolling far, but itwas not rolling smooth and true.

(57:40):
And of course there was somesand on the greens.
And of course we have this ideaI've taught seminars in the
past.
I don't do it anymore, but Iused to teach seminars and say,
you know, you put sand and it'llmake the green smoother.
And, you know, you have to keepto maintain the firmness on
greens.
You need to keep putting sand onit to match the rate of grass
growth and stuff.

(58:01):
And so.
There, there's certainly afascination in this industry
with sand and there's somepeople who seem to try to figure
out ways to put down more sandwas just this idea that more
sand is going to somehow bebetter.
Well, I've switched the way thatI think about this over the past
10 years and Because I used toteach those seminars.

(58:25):
I used to go really repeatingthings that it was developed by
Dr.
Bob Carroll.
Really?
He did some research.
The USGA funded some researchbecause bentgrass greens were
failing in the Southeast 25years ago.
And so the USGA funded researchand everybody was concerned
about what can we do to keepthese bentgrass greens from

(58:47):
failing in the summer.
And.
The research that Dr.
Caro did suggested that theorganic matter accumulating to a
rate, to an amount of fourpercent by mass or more at the
top of a sand based root zone iswhat could lead to catastrophic

(59:08):
failure of bentgrass greens inthe summer in high temperatures.
And so out of that, in the early2000s, there was recommendations
from the USGA Green section todo that 20 percent surface area
removal by coring to add from 40to 50 cubic feet per.

(59:28):
1, 000 square feet per year ofsand, which is 12 millimeters to
15 millimeters of sand per year,which is a half inch to five
eighths of an inch of sand,basically.
That's how much sand you shouldbe adding per year in order to
keep the organic matter in thesoil from reaching that critical

(59:48):
threshold that Dr.
Caro developed.
So that was all from late 90sand early 2000s research.
Back then, there wasn't so muchgrowth regulator use.
It was not certainly not, youknow, pure distinction.
It was on the bentgrass side.
It wasn't pure distinction, 007,777 the new varieties of

(01:00:10):
bentgrass and on the ultra dwarfside, it certainly wasn't ultra
dwarfs.
In the nineties, it was stilltiff dwarf, I think.
So some of the.
And there wasn't so much growthregulator use, and there was
more nitrogen use, I would say.
So, we've taken all thosesanding recommendations and
surface area removalrecommendations that, Were

(01:00:31):
developed I would say withdifferent grasses in a different
management style back in the 90sAnd I was repeating those
Recommendations and then peoplewere doing them a lot of people
repeat those recommendations Andwhat happens then is people put
a lot of sand because in orderto Do 20 percent surface area
removal with cores.

(01:00:52):
Basically you have to do like anormal coring three times a
year, and then you fill thoseholes with sand.
And you also have to talk dressall the time to put that much
sand down.
You have to talk dress almostconstantly.
I, People were telling me thisand I was just like, look, I'm
just telling you what theresearch says, right?
Of course it wasn't research Idid myself, but I was just

(01:01:13):
saying, you need to be doingthis much, which was about three
times as much as what isreasonable.
I think like to put that muchsand and do that much coring,
it's about three times as muchas what's reasonable.
To actually maintain a golfcourse where you're presenting a
surface that's pretty good formost of the year that's kind of
how it was and I would tellpeople as I would teach these

(01:01:35):
seminars and make theserecommendations I would say you
I understand it's very difficultto do.
I understand it Your members maynot allow you to do that I'm
just telling you in a few yearswhen your greens start to fail
because your organic matter hasaccumulated to such high levels,
at least you'll know why ithappened.
And then you can say, okay,look, now I really need to do

(01:01:58):
this.
Disruptive work to put this muchsand.
So that's what I was teaching upuntil, Oh, I think the last time
I gave that kind of seminar was2014 the last time I expressed
it that way and what hadhappened is I'd gone back to
these places that weren'tfollowing my recommendations.
I'd gone back year after yearand saw their greens were fine

(01:02:21):
in year one, fine in year two,fine in year three.
Like, wait a second, why am Irecommending you're not doing
enough?
You're not putting enough sand.
And they just have great greensyear after year.
I said, I need to pay moreattention to this and not just
repeat recommendations butreally make correct
recommendations.
And so from that I realized,well, clearly the ball rolls

(01:02:41):
better on greens that don't havesand on it.
If it's just rolling on reallynice grass.
And I thought, you know, I'veworked at the Masters many times
worked at a lot of othertournaments.
It's pretty rare to go do a sandtop dressing event during
tournament week.
So even though we say that topdressing is something that makes
the green smoother.
You don't actually go do that onTuesday of tournament week, you,

(01:03:04):
in fact, I think the PGA tourmay have had some agronomic
guidelines that suggested acertain cutoff time prior to the
tournament when you do your lastventing or last cultivation
event or your last top dressingevent.
And I realize, wait a second,clipping volume could be related
to this, because if the grassdoesn't grow, we don't need to

(01:03:27):
put sand.
The amount of sand that we needto put is going to be
proportional to how much thegrass grows.
And you think about dormantgrass in the winter, If for some
reason we did need to top dressdormant grass which I think it's
pretty rare that you would needto do that.
But if you go top dress adormant putting green on Monday

(01:03:48):
do you need to go top dress it?
And so it doesn't grow all weekbecause it's dormant.
Do you need to go top dress itagain the next Monday?
Absolutely not.
Cause the sand that you put theprevious Monday is still going
to be there.
And if you take it, If you dothat kind of thought experiment
and take the thought to anextreme, you realize if our
clipping volume is really low,we can put less sand.

(01:04:11):
There's just less need to putsand.
And so I've kind of taken mythinking about clipping volume
in that direction of like, wow,Maybe we can just make better
surfaces with less sand becausewe're just not producing as much
organic matter.
So that's something that I'mreally excited about because it

(01:04:33):
would seem that also you couldhave a certain accumulated
amount of clippings and say,okay, that's our trigger that
now we finally have to put somemore sand.
So go moving away from acalendar schedule.
Of top dressing and to somethingwhere we really let the grass
growth this year with theweather conditions that we have
this year, with the way thatwe're managing the grass this

(01:04:55):
year, let that tell us how muchsand we need to put.

Trent Manning (01:04:59):
I love it.
I absolutely love it.
And what I'm, yeah, and no, I'mgetting so excited now because
I'm getting so excited becauseyou're telling superintendents
not to put out as much sand asyou were before.
Hopefully that's where I'm goingwith this.

(01:05:19):
The less sand, the better for usequipment managers.

Micah Woods (01:05:23):
And I was I looked at that.
In the past is something if justlike that's an unfortunate part
of the job, but it's essential.
And I would have just said, Iunderstand this is doing all
kinds of problems and destroyingthe cutting units that we're
putting out there.
And just making all kinds ofhassle and adjusting mowing

(01:05:45):
heights and.
Just all the problems that weall know come with having sand,
in the canopy or on the surface.
And I just looked at that as anecessary evil, I guess.
And now I really do look at itin, from a completely opposite
viewpoint.
And I look at anytime I go to agolf course and I see sand and I

(01:06:09):
can notice and or I can touchthe surface and I can feel sand.
I instantly question was thatnecessary?
What are they trying toaccomplish by putting the sand?
Now, there can be very goodreasons why you need to put sand
and I still think some sand isnecessary.
But I am, again, I look at itcompletely opposite.

(01:06:32):
To the way I used to recommend aminimum amount, make sure you're
putting out at least 12millimeters of sand, which is a
half inch of sand per year.
That's some of it goes intoholes.
Some of it gets spread acrossthe surface, but I used to teach
seminars and say, you, if you'renot doing this, you're falling
behind.
And now I tell people, youreally should be measuring your

(01:06:54):
organic matter using the, what Icall the OM246 method to very
precisely measure the totalorganic material right at the
surface, track the change inorganic material over the time,
over time, and look at theclipping volume and use those
numbers to fine tune how muchsand you put.
And what I've seen is people puthalf as much sand or a third of

(01:07:21):
a third as much sand as in thepast, and the surfaces are even
better and the organic matterstays under control.
So sometimes now I might be, Icould talk, it might be more
popular talking to equipmentmanagers because I think golf
course superintendents aroundthe world are still thinking the
way that I did 10, 15 years ago,unfortunately, um, I think not

(01:07:45):
everybody that teaches seminarshas flipped 180 like I did.
And I still see sometimes, um,In fact, I had a friend, I have
a golf course superintendentfriend who had to watch some um,
watch some webinars to make surethat he can maintain his class a
status.
So he had to do some continuingtraining and make sure that he

(01:08:07):
checked off those continuingeducation points or something.
And he was watching somethingabout organic matter management
in 2024.
And he's like, Micah, you know,He sent me screenshots of what
the slides were from thewebinar.
He's like, you're not going tobelieve what they're teaching.
And it's still all that 10, 15,20 year old recommendations

(01:08:28):
about how much sand you shouldput.
So I realized that thoserecommendations are still out
there.
And a lot of people haven'tupdated and.
And not everybody's doingclipping volume.
Not everybody's doing this OM246changing testing.
Um, the, these things change,the technologies change, and
what I'm doing, I think, isreally cutting edge in terms of

(01:08:49):
the recommendations, and it'snot quite the standard.
But, you know, we, we can'texpect, if people think they're
getting good results, and theyhave been getting good results,
and people have been tellingthem that they've been getting
good results, and they've donethat without clipping volume,
they've done that with a lot oftop dressing on a calendar
schedule and you can get goodresults that way.

(01:09:10):
I just think it's moredifficult.
It's not as efficient.
Um, it's hard to change ifyou're getting good results and
people are validating thatyou're getting good results and
you know you're getting goodresults.
So, um, what's the incentive tochange?
But my incentive to change isit'd be even better and we don't
destroy our reels.

Ah, there you go.
I love it.
I love it.
No, and I, you know, I wasjoking there a little bit about
that.
And I understand some need totop dress, but I agree a hundred
percent, a lot of peopleprobably top dress too much.
And I'm saying that based on myexperience.
If you top dress a putting greenand you mow it and you collect

(01:09:56):
75 percent of the sand that youjust put on the green, what good
did you really do?

Yeah not very much.

Yeah, so I, you know, and I've never understood
that and luckily at my club, wedon't make a habit of doing
that, but I know other clubsthat tend to do that quite
often.
So why put the sand out, pick itup with the mower, throw it in
the woods?

I did a project in Thailand looking at leaf
nutrient content.
And And I think it was almost 30different golf courses.
We asked to collect a a leaftissue sample, a clipping sample
from putting greens and did thisfrom past Balaam golf courses
Zoysia grass, green golfcourses, and Bermuda grass,

(01:10:42):
green golf courses in Thailand.
It's all warm season.
So I asked them to collect thesample.
And then I went into the golfcourse and And collected that
sample and some of them, it wasshocking to me how much sand was
in those clippings and I wasjust like, man, what do you talk
dressing for?
If you're just mowing it back upand I was just like, just pretty

(01:11:04):
worried about what the machinesare like, what the cutting units
are like when you're justpicking up sand.

And so I, I hate to admit this, but I'm going to,
I'm going to admit it.
So we're ultra dwarf Bermudahere and champion Bermuda.
Um, we're going to renovationand going to be TIFF Eagle,
whatever.
Um, but when I've experiencedheavy top dressings, and I'm not
talking about posterification,but just heavy weekly top

(01:11:34):
dressings on this Bermuda.
If you set your reel to bedknife with a slide drag.
And you send it out and it mows.
So, you know, we walk, mowgreen.
So we're sending out fivemowers.
So each mowers, you know, mowingroughly four greens ish.
Right.
So it comes in and I'm talkingToro again.

(01:11:58):
So seven, 10 thousands in eachclick, and you have to give it
10 clicks to get contact back,you know, real to bed knife.
We know the last green thatmower mowed, it was not cutting
grass with a scissor likecutting action.

(01:12:20):
I'm, I can say that confidently.
Were we getting clippings?
I don't know because I wasn't onthat green.
We were probably getting a lotof sand though because we're
picking that up.
But what I noticed is no one wasAnd I mean, including myself
could look at the last greenthat mower mowed and say that

(01:12:41):
cut looks terrible.
Did I look at it with amicroscope?
No, I did not.
And I will be doing this nextyear since I got a microscope
now because I am curious to whatthe health of that turf looks
like.
But when you're picking up somuch sand, why grind the reel to

(01:13:01):
go out and pick up more sandagain?
So in my experiment, what Iwould do is adjust reel to bed
knife.
So I had lock, light contactagain, and we'd send them same
mower out the next day.
I know it would not cut paper,but it picked up sand pretty
good.

yeah on Bermuda grass, I think you can get away
with that.
Um, on zoysia grass greens, itcertainly you can tell if the
mower's not set up to cut it, itjust shreds it and turns it
white.
And, um, it's interesting howBermuda grass can cut so much

(01:13:40):
cleaner.
Paspallum doesn't cut very cleaneither.
Um, so, I think it, it'scertainly been a problem.
I've seen it at a golf course inJapan.
Again, Kea golf club.
Where the mechanic or equipmentmanager there he, when they top
dress, he really just won'tgrind the real until they're not
going to get any more sand.

(01:14:02):
He won't change the bed knivesuntil they're not going to be
picking up any more sand becauseit destroys it so fast.
And the quality of cut will notbe good.
And so you'd have to basicallychange the bed knife every day,
grind the reels every day, andhe's not in a position to be
able to do that, but they wantto go mow the next day.
So top dressing becomes a hugeordeal.

(01:14:24):
And they've done some innovativemaintenance there where they now
typically will top dress justonce a year.
And I would have thought that'scompletely impossible.
I've done consulting there since2013 and in 2013, I recommended
2013, 2014, I recommended put asmuch sand as you can.
Now I'm do we even need to topdress this year?

(01:14:47):
And this year they top dressedand then the greens had a bad
quality of cut for like twoweeks and then once they weren't
getting sand anymore, then theychange the bed knife, adjust the
reel, and then they go out andactually

At what type of grass was this?

Zoysia.
Zoysia on the putting greens.
So, that's It's a differentanimal in terms of being able to
cut it.

Oh yeah, and I know exactly what you're talking
about with white tips.
I've seen that on Zoysia a timeor two in my career when I've
had dull cutting units.

Yeah.
Yeah.
You can,

or two.

I've seen it as time or two.
Yeah.
I think my best pictures, if Itake a closeup picture of
shredded leaf tips, it tends tohappen on zoysia.
And I would say just one morething about sand on the greens.
I've seen.
Places that have problems aroundthe perimeter of greens not just
in the cleanup pass, but justaround the edges and sometimes

(01:15:43):
you'll have issues withirrigation coverage.
You have issues with, um,traffic, but if you have sand on
the green, it's more abrasiveand so just rollers.
And setting the cutting units upand down, maybe a little bit of
turning of the machine, thedrive roller or tires, it, over
time, it accumulates that damageand puts more stress around the

(01:16:06):
perimeter.
Something that's anecdotal is.
People who have cut back on sandtop dressing have seen improved
turf grass performance throughstressful periods and less of
that damage around the edgesthat people used to just think
happens every summer.
Um, now they're saying, Hey,never.

(01:16:28):
I even I visited a course in theCincinnati area Hyde Park and
they didn't use turning boardsthis year, which they attribute
to the.
Some changes in the way they'remanaging.
They used to put a turningboards on the collars and turn
the walk mowers on those on bentgrass grains.
This year, they brought theturning boards out zero times
and didn't see any decline.

(01:16:49):
Um,

Oh, wow.
That's

in the past they always would start to see
decline and bring the turningboards out and this year it was
a really hot year and theydidn't have that, um, and they
attribute that to some changesin fertilizer, measuring the
clipping volume, adjusting thefertilizer according to that and
I think putting out a veryreasonable amount of sand, not
a, not an excessive amount.

Well, I think one of my biggest takeaways so far
that I hope most superintendentspick up on is if the grass is
not growing, why are you topdressing?
Because I mean, you made the,you know, you made the perfect
point of if it's dormant, youwouldn't go out every week and
throw sand on it.
If it's, you know, in the springand here in the South and we're

(01:17:32):
just starting to grow, you'reprobably not going to have to
put out as much sand on week oneas you do on week 10.

And people put out sand because they've been taught
and they know that if you don'thave enough air in the root
zone, the grass is going to failand it's going to fail when the
temperatures are extreme and youknow, if you're in Atlanta, the
temperatures are going to beextreme, so you're
preventatively putting that sandas much as you can whenever you

(01:18:00):
can, I think, with this ideathat you're going to put the
sand to maintain enough Aerationporosity in the root zone so
that the grass doesn't suffocatefrom just being surrounded by
like a sponge full of water.
And so you want something thathas some airspace in it.
And the only way to do that wethink is to keep it very sandy.

(01:18:24):
Well, I just, I recommendcontrolling the growth.
And if you just don't, if youdon't produce that organic
matter that holds the water,then.
It doesn't hold water and totest that you can do the OM 246
testing.
That is a very accurate way tocheck how much organic material

(01:18:46):
is present and you can check howmuch rapidly it's accumulating.
The USGA green section hasfunded a big project on that.
They offer that service.
I offer that service.
Any Brookside lab consultant canoffer that service because
Brookside labs up in Ohio doesdoes a lot of that testing.
And there's a few othercompanies that offer a very

(01:19:07):
similar type of testing.
Although I recommend doing whatI call OM246, which is the same
as what the USGA green sectionrecommends for comparison
purposes.
You know that you're using theexact same method that everybody
else is.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Definitely makes sense.

and so when you do that, you're, you quickly can
find out like, Hey, my organicmatter is okay.
Okay.
Okay.
For UltraDwarf BermudagrassGreens, I'm normal.
And then you can say, okay,maybe I can just cut back a
little bit.
And then you monitor it.
You've cut back on the topdressing a little bit.
And then you measure the organicmaterial again.
And you can find out, hey, It'sgoing in, it's still stable

(01:19:47):
where you might find, whoa, it'sexploding.
It's going way too high.
I clearly now havejustification.
I need to put more sand, butwhat we've done in the past is
just following textbooks andfollowing what other people are
doing.
And I think the way to do it isdo it really site specific and
just see, you know, championsgoing to accumulate.

(01:20:09):
Organic matter different thanTIF Eagle.
You can actually measure that.
And it, and people think thatthey're doing that already.
Um, and they are to some extentI would just say it's such an
important topic, use all theresources available.
Um, and make sure you're doingthat kind of testing.

Yeah, hands down.
Can we talk about cutting unitsetup a little bit and clipping
yield?

Yeah I don't know how much

Or volume?
Um,

go for it.

alright, so, well, let's hit one question
here from Chris Whitaker.
He says, how much time do youwait after top dressing to get
accurate clipping yield?
So does it matter?
Top dressing?

you know, I really hope that when people are top
dressing, that they're notcollecting too much of the sand
in the baskets.
Um, one of the reasons

heard it here first, superintendents do not
collect a lot of, yeah,

so basically for me, I want to measure clipping
volume every time you mow.
And if you're collecting a lotof sand.
Um, then, yeah I don't know whythe mowers were even sent out
that day.
Like, just take the dew off thegreens and leave it, um, cause
you want that sand to staythere.

(01:21:32):
That's why you put it out.
Um, so, so for me there's no,in, in terms of measuring
clipping volume, just, I want todo it every time we mow.
Cause I think if we collect acertain, let's say 3, 000, um,
liters of clippings this yearfrom our grains, then we know
we'd need a certain amount ofsand to create a good surface

(01:21:54):
when we get 3000 liters.
That's the total amount peryear.
So next year I want to measureall the clippings too.
And if we're at 2500 liters forthe entire year next year, we
should be able to reduce oursand amount by whatever that
ratio is of 2, 500 divided by 3,000

and if you're collecting that, then you know
how much sand to put out, or atleast a guess

you'd have a guess because you'd know last year you
might be like last year itworked really good for us and we
put this much sand.
So next year we measure theclippings every time and we find
out how much clippings, how muchit grew.
That's how much sand you put.
So for me there's no weight interms of clipping volume.
It's just obviously if you'vegot a basket full of sand.

(01:22:43):
That's not clipping volume.
You probably can disregard thenumber, but I hope that nobody
does that.

Me too.
Definitely not.
So, next question from Ben, I'mgoing to mess his name up, so
I'm not even going to try.
It's Ben H.
How much does cutoff baradjustment affect clipping
yield?
So, and I guess I need toapologize because I was saying

(01:23:12):
yield, but it's really volume,correct?

Yeah.
To be precise.
I would say volume becauseclipping yield to me means the
dry matter.

Okay.
So, and I brought this upearlier.
The cutoff bar is on a Toro andit's a black bar and it's just
above the real of the cuttingunit.
And as the real wears, that baris supposed to be adjusted down
towards the real.

(01:23:47):
And if I remember correctly thegap is supposed to be about a
sixty thousandths gap.
So a sixteenth of an inch abovethe reel.
And that is supposed to helpthrow clippings into the basket.
And John Deere does it verysimilarly.
The shield on Deer units adjustand I think the spec is about

(01:24:10):
the same, about a 16th of aninch.
So if that gap gets wider, Iguess you have less velocity as
the real spinning around.
So it's not throwing theclippings as far.
Have you noticed any differencein that?

No, but I suspect it has quite a big difference
and, um, I, I wish there couldbe some more.
Research about that, or I wouldjust encourage people to try to
keep it consistent because Ithink there's, there must be big
differences between differentmachines and different machine
setups in terms of how manyclippings stay on the stay, you

(01:24:50):
know, fall down and don't gointo the basket and how many
actually go into the basket andbasically, I don't know, but I
suspect it's it has a bigeffect.

Yeah, I would think so too.
And you know, just like we'retalking about consistency.
I would think you would want tomake your cutting unit set up.
as consistent from mower tomower from reel to reel as
possible, whether that be thecutoff bar or the shield or your

(01:25:21):
bed, not behind center distance,your number of spacers, your
real diameter.
I know that's something, youknow, kind of on our side of the
shop, if you will, we try tokeep most of us anyway, try to
keep our real diameter within acertain number.
So.
You know, if it's a brand newreel, we try to keep them all

(01:25:43):
within 10 percent ish of oneanother.
If you got three reels or fivereels on a machine, because once
you start getting over that,then you're going to start
seeing more issues.
It Makes sense.

I can imagine.
Yeah

Yeah.

I don't, I've never done that job, but it seems
daunting to me.
It's there's, you know, for an18 hole golf course, how many
cutting units do you typicallyhave?
Like, cause we're talking, youknow, greens, fairways, tees,
that it's gotta be 30,

Way, way more than that for me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause I got 14 walking greensmowers.
I got four fairway mowers.
So there's 20, there's 35 rightthere.
And

That they go out, that it go out basically daily.
And then you've got a lot ofextra too.

yes.
Yeah.
I mean, it's a lot, it's a lotto keep up with.
And you were kind of mentioning.
The amount of equipment and Imean, we're a fortunate club,
but I have, we have 27 holestotal between the two clubs and
I have close to 4 million worthof equipment.
I mean, it's just, you know, andthat's including all the

(01:26:58):
increases in the last four yearsof equipment, but still that's a
lot of money to, to beresponsible for.
And it's not, unfortunately,it's not just cutting units.
We have

Right.
Yeah.
We've been

a lot more stuff.

yeah, we've been talking.
Yeah.
It's yeah.
It's such a big job.
And I really appreciate when Isee a shop that is well
organized and the equipment is,um, is well taken care of.
And it's been Supplied withenough resources and a nice
working area and stuff.
So I, I see in Asia, I just feelsorry for the people who are put

(01:27:40):
in the position of taking careof the equipment and they may
have a place that's not airconditioned or not heated
properly and just don't have theright kind of workspace.
And then the golf course buysthis machine that is, you know,
six figure.
Type of fairway mower orsomething, you know, so, so
it's, the machines cost the sameall over the world, but

(01:28:01):
sometimes, and it's not just inAsia, but I'm, you know, there's
shops in the U S and Canada andwherever that, that are not
provisioned with enough it'sjust not a good enough working
space and not enough tools.
And it's like, okay, you'resupposed to take care of this.
And it's just like, what's goingon with the whole operation.
It really needs to start, Ithink, from having a really.

(01:28:23):
You need the right equipment andyou need to be able to take care
of it.
That's where it all starts.
And you can't have the back ofhouse not able to do that.
So is it, and it just gets to bea bigger and bigger job because
the standards keep increasingand what the product is supposed
to be in terms of playingsurface presentation and you
know, what the green speeds aresupposed to be and stuff like

(01:28:44):
that.
So, so to do that, yeah, it's abig job.
Yeah.

helped out a course in the Bahamas and the
shop.
I don't understand.
I mean, I think they were doingreally good on their quality of
cuts and after cut appearancewith the resources they had.
They're working out of acraftsman toolbox that has four

(01:29:12):
drawers of tools and there'snothing on the island.
You can't run to Napa, you can'trun to the auto parts store to
get something.
You know, it was, you need abattery, you gotta wait for the
boat to come from Nassau tobring you a battery.
I mean, and most of the partsthat they would order, it would

(01:29:33):
take three to four months.
To get a part in for a piece ofequipment.
So, I mean, it's really amazing.
And they were having a cornfairy tour tournament there.
I mean, it was crazy.
I can't believe what thesepeople are doing.
And I'm so spoiled here inAmerica and all the resources I
have at my club.

(01:29:54):
And, you know, they're doing asgood as me.
So, you know, good on them.
But it is amazing.
You know, in your travels, I'msure you've seen a lot of places
that are not as well equipped asothers.

Yeah I think I get hired to I get hired to advise
about grass and soil and waterand stuff like that.
But Whenever I go visit a golfcourse, if I just have a short
amount of time I say, take me tothe, I want to see the best
grass.
I want to see the worst grass.
I'd like to see the most scenicpoint.
And I want to see themaintenance shop.

(01:30:28):
And between those four things,I'll end up seeing some amount
of the property.
I can see the best grass and theworst grass and get some idea of
what the problems might be.
But really we can learn so muchby looking at the shop and just
seeing what the, Maintenanceteam is provided with from the
club and then how they'reutilizing what they're provided

(01:30:50):
with.
And I see too often that they'renot provided with a good working
space.
They're not provided with enoughequipment and they're not
provided with enough equipmentor resources to take care of the
equipment.
And yet the club may have theexpectation that they're going
to be a really nice, product outthere on the golf course.
It's really hard to do that ifyou don't have the right

(01:31:11):
machines and you don't have theright machines in working order.
So

Yep.
Very true.

yeah, I just don't know.
I mean, that's not telling youanything you don't know, but
sometimes I don't know how tocommunicate that because people
don't, you know, the peoplemaking the decisions at the club
sometimes about what they'regoing to spend money on.
They might be happy to buy anew, buy new grass or maybe buy
a new mower, but they don't wantto invest on.

(01:31:37):
on keeping it keeping it up.

Yeah, I think that happens.
Yeah, everywhere.
You know, a lot of these clubsthat way.
And definitely, I think golfcourse maintenance kind of gets
the court short end of the sticka lot of times, especially, you
know, private clubs andmembership and all those things.
You know, they see theclubhouse, they see the kitchen,
you know, they seeing all thosethings.
They don't come down and hangout in the maintenance shop too

(01:32:02):
much and see our struggles andwhat we're dealing with.
Yeah,

like GCSAA and the type of credibility that they
can give and the certificationsthat they can give and the
continuing education that theycan give and some of the
promotion that they can do ofthe profession can be quite
helpful in the long run, Ithink.
Um, and in just putting amessage out there of, you know,

(01:32:32):
if this is what we want ourindustry to be, then we need to
have this, we need to have thesekind of people, we need to have
these kind of workspaces, weneed to have this kind of
expertise and we need to have,You know, support of the people
doing this work.
So, um, I, I think professionalorganizations maybe could be
helpful in that regard.

(01:32:52):
And that's why I think maybe inthe United States, it's a little
bit badder, I think, thananother certainly in, in Asian
countries where we find peopleworking on dirt floors
sometimes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Me too.

I see some of these short videos on YouTube of
these guys, you know, doing allkind of like shop work and
they're wearing sandals and I'mlike, wow, you know, we have it
so lucky here, you know, andthey have like these homemade
machines that they're doingstuff on that where they cobbled
stuff together or whatever, butthey're definitely very.

(01:33:29):
Innovative.
And I'm very thankful for GCSAand associations like that.
And especially for the equipmentmanager, the GCSA has done so
much for the equipment managerover the, since they took us in
under their umbrella, I think itwas 2015 and really elevating
our position and it's great whatall has happened and I'm excited

(01:33:54):
to see where it's going to go inthe future.
Yeah.
so you ready to wrap this up?
You want to do some rapid fire?
All right.
What's your favorite movie?

That's a tough one for me, and the one that came to
mind was Butch Cassidy and theSundance Kid.

Oh, that's a classic.

That's a classic,

Yeah.

and I thought, you know, I could, that's a movie I
could sit down and watch, andthen watch again, and then watch
again.
That's the one that came tomind.

Awesome.
I love it.
What would be your last meal?

Um, that's a tough one because I eat a lot of good
food but I'm American.
I don't often get a really goodcheeseburger and fries.
And I think that's somethingthat I've come to appreciate as
I get older.
I may just go for that becauseevery time I have a good
cheeseburger and fries itreminds me of home.

(01:34:50):
Of my home.

Okay.
Yeah.
So what is your favoritecheeseburger and fries?

Oh it would be in some kind of local local kind of
bar or bistro and yeah,something with something with
onions and bacon.
I think,

There you go.

But yeah, not I mean, it's not gonna be a Big
Mac.
I like a Big Mac but it would besomething in a place with a
wooden bar or I'm up on a one ofthose round tables and a Bar
stool kind of place have somekind of nice beer and a nice
ambience and just enjoyed a niceburger.

I love it.
Well, if you're ever in Atlanta,you hit me up.
We'll go find a nice

we'll go find out.
I bet we can.
They're not too hard to find in,in, in many parts of America,
but I generally avoid them inWhen I'm outside of it is like,
if we go to Atlanta, I don'treally wanna have sushi, but if
I'm in Tokyo, I'm happy to havesushi.

Oh yeah.

but because I spend so little time in the US when I
go there, I really cherishhaving a, just a really nice
burger.
I'm like,

I love it.

That's, that was so good.

What are you most proud of?

Um, I think I've come to realize over the years
that some of my work has been.
It's things that people canutilize and helps them do their
job.
In a more efficient way or getgood results with the grass.
So for me I'm really proud ofstuff like MLSN for nutrient
recommendations, being somebodywho's promoted clipping volume

(01:36:28):
that now people use to getreally good results and stuff
like the OM246 testing.
And just the overall philosophythat I've been able to share
about turfgrass management.
Um, I'm.
It's very satisfying for me tosee that this has been used all
over the world and people getgood results with it.
And to realize that I had asmall part in that's pretty

(01:36:50):
cool.

That is awesome.
Yeah.
I mean, how great is that?
I love it man.
That is, that's really goodstuff.
If you can't be proud of that,what can you be proud of, right?

well, it's just, you know, I don't want to be too
proud and too certain that thisis the best way to do it.
I always have to be questioningmyself, right, because I hate to
be giving advice that wouldsteer anybody in the wrong
direction.
Um, so, so I'm proud of this,but also.
Try to be humble enough andquestioning myself and saying,

(01:37:21):
okay what do we need to do tomake sure that the
recommendations continue to workin the, you know, going forward?
Because like I said, you know, Idid that 180 degree complete
reversal on how I think aboutsand.
I'm not saying we don't needsand, but I used to recommend
sand on a calendar schedule,annual totals.
You need to hit these minimumvalues.

(01:37:43):
And now I'm wow.
Why did you put that sand?
I asked that question a lot andit's more like how can we get
away with as little sand aspossible?
So I've flipped on that and I'mproud of that too.
I'm happy to admit that Ilearned something and I think my
current recommendation is waybetter than my previous
recommendation.

(01:38:04):
And I just, yeah I'm proud ofwhat the impact that this kind
of stuff has had, but I want tokeep going and continue to do
better.

I think that's what makes us human.
Right.
I mean, you know, we'reconstantly learning.
Yeah.
We're constantly learning.

yeah.
And everybody's trying to dotheir best.
And yeah, we just, yeah, it's abig mess, but we just keep
going.
That's what makes us human.

That's right.
I love it.
Thank you so much for being onthe podcast.
I've thoroughly enjoyed this.
We went an hour and 45 minutes.
That's a lot longer than Inormally go.
But it's, I mean, we've had alot of fun.
I mean, no, don't apologize atall.
Cause I mean, this has been ablast and I think the listeners
will love it.
And if they don't, okay.

(01:38:52):
Cause I've had a good time and Ihope you have too.
Yeah.
Could you tell the listeners howthey could get ahold of you,
reach out to you on Twitter orsomething like that.

Yeah.
Well, you can Google my name andit will turn up.
I would recommend go to mywebsite, asianturfgrass.
com and there's an about pagethere.
That has a little bio sketch andit's got a link to all my social
media channels or email orwhatever so if you want to get
in touch with me or tell me thati'm completely wrong or Tell

(01:39:24):
share some case study or storywith me of like yeah I cut back
on the sand and the grass hasnever been better.
I would love to hear both thatI'm wrong or that I'm right and
through that I can learn.
So you can get in touch with methrough my website,
AsianTurfCrafts.
com.

Awesome.
Thank you so much.

You are welcome.
Thanks for having me.

Thank you so much for listening to the Reel turf
techs podcast.
I hope you learned somethingtoday.
Don't forget to subscribe.
If you have any topics you'dlike to discuss, or you'd like
to be a guest, find us onTwitter at Reel turf techs.

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