Bermuda grass eradication

     With most old golf course multiple turf species is common place.  Franklin County Country Club was established in 1924.  Through the years before Irrigation systems many different species of turf grass were used on the golf course.  One species that was used was Bermuda grass.  Bermuda grass is a warm season turf that can go for long periods of time without water.  Back in the day if you had Bermuda grass in your fairways you had some turf to hit off of in the summer.  The problem with Bermuda grass is it is only good for about 3 months out of the year.  When it goes dormant in the winter it dies back to the ground.  That does not give you the best lie for playing golf in winter and spring.  When it greens up in the spring it is very slow to do so. 
     Back in the early to mid 90's the club spent a lot of money to sod our fairways to Meyer Zoysia grass.  Over the years the Bermuda grass has continued to contaminate the Zoysia Fairways.  Bermuda grass is  more aggressive than the Zoysia.  Zoysia grass is a much better turfgrass.  It is finer textured and the ball stands up on it.  In the winter the leaves turn brown but they do not die back to the ground.  You still have a nice lie in the winter.  Over the last 20 years we have lost some of our Zoysia to the Bermuda.  If you look close enough in the Fairways you can see the difference in color and texture.  You will even see some of the long stolens in the fairways.
     The fairways are not the only place we have Bermuda contamination.  Our tee's, some of our collars and some of our green surrounds are also contaminated.  There are some herbicides on the market that will selectively kill the Bermuda and not hurt the Zoysia and cool season turf.  We will be using some of these products on a few holes.  It will take 3 applications 1 month apart to kill the Bermuda grass.  We will do 2 or 3 fairways,  about 1 acre of tee's and 2 different green surrounds and collars. You will notice the Bermuda will turn brown or white depending which herbicides are used.  When we are finished in September we may need to buy some Zoysia sod to sod big voided areas.  In areas that are not as big the Zoysia will fill back in on it own.  So the next 3 month if you see something a little off to some of our fairways, tee, collars and green surrounds we are trying to eradicate the Bermuda grass.  This is the first phase.  The next few years we will expand on this program and do all of our fairways, tee's and green surrounds and collar that have contamination.

Top of picture is Zoysia.  Bottom part has Bermuda contamination

Here is Bermuda grass stolens