Improving the course while saving resources
By: Patrick McKee
The swing of the club. The ball soaring through a bright, blue sky. The roar of the crowd as the ball hits the ground. It is the dream shot for any golfer.
But, if the course is in less than stellar shape, then the cheers turn to groans as the golfer has to take their next stroke in poor conditions.
A team of researchers in the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences is working to make sure the turf on the course is in pristine condition for the next round and throughout the season while also saving resources.
The team, led by Assistant Professor David McCall, is working to find alternative ways to manage spring dead spot that are cost effective. To accomplish this, they are turning to precision turfgrass management.
Spring dead spot
Spring dead spot is a disease of bermudagrass and other grasses. It is caused by a fungus that infects in the fall and colonizes throughout winter. Symptoms of the disease are sunken, circular brown spots that are scattered among green, healthy grass.
“It is one of the most common diseases in Virginia and one of the most problematic for golf course superintendents and athletic field managers,” McCall said.
The disease is recurring and will reappear from year to year. “It might start as the size of a softball,” McCall said. “The next year it might be a volleyball or basketball. Then it might get up to three feet in diameter.”
It will eventually run its course, but that is not an option on the golf course where green, lush grass is required for optimal play.
“It actually impacts playability,” McCall said. “You might think you hit a great shot, but all of a sudden you’re in this hole in the middle of the fairway and it’s not very easy to advance the ball.”
Treating the disease typically takes place in the fall once soil temperatures are optimal, between 65 and 70 degrees.
Turning to technology
Researchers ramped up their work in 2016 to find alternative ways to manage spring dead spot. In the beginning, it was a labor intensive and manual process to detect the location of the disease. Turning to automation made the process much easier and faster.
The team started small, experimenting on a handful of fairways. In 2022, they scaled up to all 18.
“For my masters, I worked on a script to automate the process of detecting spring dead spot,” said Ph.D. student Caleb Henderson. “That evolved into, if we have this map, how do we make it so we can actually use it to treat?”
To get the maps, they turned to drones. They were flown on a preplanned mapping flight about 80 feet above the course. An image was taken every second.
"We would stitch the images together and make those hundreds of images into one large photo,” Henderson said. “Once we have that, it just takes a lot of computer vision and some light machine learning to figure out where the spring dead spot is.”
Once the images are acquired and locations for treatment identified, they are then uploaded to onto the GPS sprayer. As with any technology, there can be hiccups. “I was able to get two maps uploaded, but when I tried to get the third and final map uploaded, it was throwing all kinds of errors,” Henderson said.
Once they discovered a work around, they were able to successfully complete the project.
Minimizing waste
“I hate waste when it comes to anything,” McCall said.
Using precision management techniques can reduce the amount of product needed to treat the disease. In many cases, a broad application is administered, but only using it where it is needed saves resources. “We have reduced as much as 85 percent of product applied without sacrificing efficacy,” said Travis Roberson, a Ph.D. student in the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences.
In addition to materials, precision management also saves on labor costs and is environmentally friendly. “You are saving on your carbon footprint as well, because you are reducing trips back to refill the sprayer because of applying less product,” Roberson said.
Forming partnerships
For this and other projects, researchers in the school have partnered with Independence Golf Club in Midlothian, Virginia, for several years.
Over the past several years, more than 100 research trials have taken place at the course with around a dozen warm season grass varieties being established, leading to several publications. Information gathered during these trails has been presented annually at the annual Research Classic Field Day that is hosted at the club.
Next steps
Knowing the success of precision management, the team of researchers will continue working on overcoming barriers of adoption.
A barrier for many is upfront capital costs. A preliminary economic analysis shows, by saving resources using precision guided applications, courses could see a return on investment after a couple of years.
“We’ve shown this technology works,” McCall said. “Our stakeholders see that it works and they are beginning to trust it, they just have not pulled the trigger themselves on adopting for their golf courses.”