7/10/2012 6:07 PM
Justin,
When I was an assistant we stripped out all our collars and approaches and sodded them to Penn Trio. What a bear trying to keep 40" Penn Trio collars alive- they always took a beating. What I learned was that the bent collars did not like topdressing, hated mowers turning on them and did not like growth regulation of any sorts. I totally concur with the above recommendation that you should take them lower as there is less leaf tissue for bruising and less thatch accumulation. Also, I would advise rolling only into the cleanups on the greens, that will definitely help. We did try the added fertility but it never seemed to help, probably b/c the greens were poa and we had them heavily regulated on a seven day schedule which included spraying the collar. We would lightly syringe bruised areas throughout the day. Never verticut them until the fall but did needletine them every two weeks. The interesting thing that I found was we did a greens extension on a hole and used A4 sod for the replacement on the nursery. At the same time we stripped out the collar on it and used A4. It held up great- didn't get the foot traffic but we treated it the same mowing, rolling and spraying wise. Hope this helps.
Tom Kaplun
North Hempstead Country Club