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About this blog

Dave Wilber goes hard at it and never pulls any punches when it comes to agronomy.

Entries in this blog

You Never Know When The Golf Will Find You...

After GIS insanity and then the Sierra Pacific Spring Symposium my plan was to disappear to Mexico for a deep breath before summer Turfhead grillage begins. I don't do well with time off. It's a language I don't really speak. So this trip was designed to take my head out of the game. Week One was dropping into a small Mexican village known as a hippie escape. Yoga twice daily. Teaching what has become my new hobby, Energy and Bodywork in the evening. Minimal booze. Maximum sun. Week Two a bit
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

1

Why I’m Lucky To Know Great Turfheads

It's been a crazy few weeks.    GIS Sales Rodeo. The Resulting Post GIS Illness. Many Road Miles. Oh, and the Big One.    That's right, the Big One. The Sierra Pacific Spring Symposium. Wherein the amazing organization that I work with puts on two amazing days of education, hang time and golf.   My marketing counter-part, Dean Kinney and I pretty much do this whole thing. Administratively we each look in the mirror and tell our assistants what to do. And our assistants speak back with the
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

What's Going to Happen to Your Staff?

I love golf course maintenance workers. I mean, really, who is better than a great Greenkeeper? You take an A player Section Guy or Operator who really really knows their job and you have one amazing person who contributes to the game in the most positive ways and most golfers will never understand. Someone amazing enough to pipe a 300-yard long straight line on a mower, or to prep a green complex with absolute perfection in the near dark, is, to me, a total rock star to be appreciated in every
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

5

Post GIS Planning Guide... for July

Here we go. The GIS Show Wrap Up. Lets go aisle by aisle and row by row and take a look at the best (and worst) of the GIS.   Yawn. Seriously?  No.   It's time to get Trade Show Sales Rodeo Season out of your head and Winter out of your fur. Agronomy. That's the mantra. Agronomy.   I live in an area where we have coastal, desert, mountain, transition and all the other flavors of climate. So the typical winter break for me is never typical. The 12-month season isn't for everyone. But neither i
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

1

I Was Wrong About Local Associations

A while back I attended a local chapter meeting. I hadn't been to one in a long time as I was at the height of travel everywhere but where I live. I'd been a chapter board member of this and another chapter as a superintendent, but my role as consultant meant my reclassification. So I really wasn't sure if I belonged at a Super's Association Meeting. And this was in the time before commercial sponsorship were the more sorted out thing that they seem to be today.   So in my spare time I wrote a
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

4

An Open Letter to a Job Poster

(I’m so completely baffled by a recent “change” at a club and the resulting communication around it that I needed to let some angst out of my fingers. You may be able to guess the details. Fine. Good for you. This isn’t really here to skewer someone..well maybe a bit. It’s high time we wake up and wonder why this sort of thing happens and what each of us, as individuals can do to keep the profession from being tumbled. Oh..and pay attention to this..you think this can’t happen to you as you get
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

An Open Letter to a Job Poster

(I'm so completely baffled by a recent change at a club and the resulting communication around it that I needed to let some angst out of my fingers. You may be able to guess the details. Fine. Good for you. This isn't really here to skewer someone..well maybe a bit. Its high time we wake up and wonder why this sort of thing happens and what each of us, as individuals can do to keep the profession from being tumbled. Oh..and pay attention to this..you think this can't happen to you as you get you
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

Bending or Breaking?

In my current, often schizophrenic situation, I find myself involved in the whole concept of Early Order Season. As I write this, there are no less than thirteen “programs” that in some way or another provide an opportunity. Opportunity for what? That’s the big question for which every situation will have a different answer. I’m not sure I like the concept of TurfHead Cat Herding. And honestly, when I look at the slapdash construction of a lot of early order programs it makes me think that a bu
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

Bending or Breaking?

In my current, often schizophrenic situation, I find myself involved in the whole concept of Early Order Season. As I write this, there are no less than thirteen programs that in some way or another provide an opportunity. Opportunity for what? Thats the big question for which every situation will have a different answer.   I'm not sure I like the concept of TurfHead Cat Herding. And honestly, when I look at the slapdash construction of a lot of early order programs it makes me think that a bu
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

Vulcan Guide to Soil Testing

Soil Testing. It’s that time of year when most Turfheads are gonna pull some soil tests. My experience is that for many (if not most) this is done as kind of a box check. You know you have to do it, because that’s what you do this time of year. A lot of Turfheads tell me that soil tests are one of those things that they understand as well as a fourth or fifth language. So let’s Rock our Spock and geek a bit with some ideas about soil testing. Because of this lack of grokking, soil testing ha
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

A Guide to Yummy Tank Mixing Cocktails

I'd like to take a quick break from the water quality thing to share a recent experience from the field. Everybody tank mixes fertility products. In some form or another, you put stuff in the spray tank and expect that it will come out whatever nozzles you have and do the intended job. That's not rocket science. It's part of Turfhead life. So when I was called this week to help a Turfhead straighten out a spray mix, I was pretty excited to see what said Turf Monkey was hitting the tank with and
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

Summertime feeding..

The common question that I seem to be getting in the last few weeks has to do with feeding greens. While there can't be a universal rule set for all the different climates we all work in, there are a few things that I like to see happen for best practice summer stress conditioning. For me, consistency is key. Set your feeding schedule and stick to it. Sure, sometime things happen, but when we are doing it right, there isn't much Nitrogen involved and so growth isnt a big deal. Speaking of grow
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

A Moment of Gratitude..

To this day, I really don't know what happened. I've heard some stories and have a few paper trail type details, but that's it. After a string of 2,000 mile weeks, a notable in the golf world fumbling the ball and blaming everyone else including me and a bunch of other little and big things, I started not sleeping. For me, that's nothing new. I've not really been into sleep that much and for what it seemed, my body didn't need much. But then came one big hassle after another and not only was I
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

A Moment of Gratitude

To this day, I really don’t know what happened. I’ve heard some stories and have a few paper trail type details, but that’s it. After a string of 2,000 mile weeks, a notable in the golf world fumbling the ball and blaming everyone else including me and a bunch of other little and big things, I started not sleeping. For me, that’s nothing new. I’ve not really been into sleep that much and for what it seemed, my body didn’t need much. But then came one big hassle after another and not only was I
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

Summertime Feeding?

The common question that I seem to be getting in the last few weeks has to do with feeding greens. While there can’t be a universal rule set for all the different climates we all work in, there are a few things that I like to see happen for best practice summer stress conditioning. For me, consistency is key. Set your feeding schedule and stick to it. Sure, sometime things happen, but when we are doing it right, there isn’t much Nitrogen involved and so growth isnt a big deal. Speaking of gr
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

A Guide to Yummy Tank Mixing Cocktails

I’d like to take a quick break from the water quality thing to share a recent experience from the field. Everybody tank mixes fertility products. In some form or another, you put stuff in the spray tank and expect that it will come out whatever nozzles you have and do the intended job. That’s not rocket science. It’s part of Turfhead life. So when I was called this week to help a turfhead straighten out a spray mix, I was pretty excited to see what said Turf Monkey was hitting the tank with and
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

Continuing to Classify Your Water

I’ve really enjoyed the feedback I’ve gotten in the field and in email about the idea of looking hard at irrigation water. Thanks for that! And the really important thing I’m hearing is the need for understanding.  I’m doing this post from my iPad in the field, so please excuse the lack of monkeys. Let’s continue for a quick look at three letters: TDS. Total Dissolved Solids is a really cool concept. I always have a hard time when someone says to me that water doesn’t have anything in it. It’s
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

Water Is No Good If It Cannot Get In The Ground

Coming into summer, I’d like to talk about water for a few posts. It’s the thing that I seem to get the most questions about this time of year and it’s the thing that I see the most mistakes being made with. I’ll try not to get too carried away with numbers and calculations. There are some, but this is more of an example of how I approach the agronomy of water quality. Water Test. That’s right. Test the water. Get a great water test from a great lab. I’m going to keep saying this. Even if you
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

There Is A Big White Sandwich-Making Sweater-Folding Elephant In My Truck

The largely unrealized goal this year was to write more blog posts. Inside of that goal has been my deep-seated desire to make Maestro Peter happy. He’d be hog slop happy with more agronomy writing from me. “Agronomy, Wilber” is often the two word email that I get from Peter. It’s fine. I think he, like a lot of people think that every day, all day, I think about growing grass and that every conversation I have with everyone I see has to do with large bore topics like how to really deal with you
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

Time For A Little Transition

Its time for all of us to go through some kind of Transition.  For the Turfhead, it usually happens sometime before Memorial Day. Regardless of what sort of climate you find yourself going to war in, there is going to be a metamorphosis, wherein somehow, some way, your turf goes from something to something else. Warm season grass jockeys have always understood things along these lines pretty well… and today are fortunate enough to have some tools to induce transition like the end of a long awa
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

Tonic for Spring Confusion

Often spring comes and with it a good deal of Turfhead confusion about fertility. It may seem a simple reaction to whatever weather is or is not happening at the time. And certainly, warm or cool season climates have interesting spring weather and interesting challenges. That’s nothing new. So why all the questions, consternation, hand waving and intimate part length measuring that seems to go on every spring? I’ve tried to figure out what causes this and have a few answers.  (by the way, if yo
Guest

Guest

0

Of Salts and Trees and Magic BioStimulants

I received this today in my email from a source that shall go unnamed because she/he/it is dumb enough to use the word Doctor around my name. Kind of like using the word Beautiful around Susan Boyle. She can sing, however. I can’t. “Dear Dr. Wilber In a post in the TurfNet Turf Blog Aggregator this week, Sean McCue of Castle Pines said, “While driving around today I noticed an interesting phenomenon from applications of iron and other biostimulants to some of our trees. We have been treating a
Guest

Guest

0

Spring Symposium Day 2, Dr Bruce Clarke and Feast Recap

I love early morning meetings. 7:30 AM and we get hit with words like Systemic Acquired Resistance and Activator Triggers. It’s a warm yummy feeling, like maple syrup over bacon and waffles and I couldn’t be more happy to be in the front row. Yum Yum Yum. Pass the Pathology, please!! Especially when we are talking about natural plant defenses. To be smart and fair, I should digress a moment as to last night’s activities.  Every year our annual meeting includes a dinner. We turn the 130 or so fo
Guest

Guest

0

Spring Symposium Day 2, Dr Bruce Clarke and Feast Recap

I love early morning meetings. 7:30 AM and we get hit with words like Systemic Acquired Resistance and Activator Triggers. Its a warm yummy feeling, like maple syrup over bacon and waffles and I couldnt be more happy to be in the front row. Yum Yum Yum. Pass the Pathology, please!! Especially when we are talking about natural plant defenses.   To be smart and fair, I should digress a moment as to last nights activities.  Every year our annual meeting includes a dinner. We turn the 130 or so fo
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

Spring Symposium, Joel Simmons

I can’t find a decent picture anywhere of Joel Simmons and it’s too dark to take a good picture, so this will have to do.  Joel is on a mission. He’s good at it and he’s taken way to much crap for understanding and going all in for a great thing. He’s saying things like “Give Me Humus or Give Me Death” and if you’ve followed anything that I’ve done or said over the years, you know that I believe in this and I live it as well. Joel and I have put our work into play at some pretty cool places and
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Guest

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