Strip sodding Zoysia Cancel The title field is required!

1. James Johnson_2

   

   0 posts
   
   8/5/2011 9:08 AM

   Has anyone ever tried to retrofit a Ryan sod cutter to cut 3-4 inch wide strips for sodding Zoysia into fairways? Thanks

   
   
   
   
2. Rosenthal Gregg

   
   8/5/2011 12:08 PM

   Just curious why would you want to do that? If you want to strip sod zoysia to eventually take over a fairway I would go with full size strips. Especially if you are in the Transition zone as zoysia can be slow to compete with existing turf. Smaller strips would make this transition take even longer. I have done some tees that way in Maryland before and over a couple of seasons with aggressive fertility it will be all zoysia. If you manage for zoysia and allow the cool season turf to get stressed it will go faster. Again it depends on the goal and where you are...Variety of Zoysia has some impact also.

   
   
   
   
3. Brett Morris

   

   0 posts
   
   8/5/2011 5:08 PM

   jimjohn1 said: Has anyone ever tried to retrofit a Ryan sod cutter to cut 3-4 inch wide strips for sodding Zoysia into fairways? Thanks

   
   
   Haven't tried strip sodding, but have converted 419 fairways to zoysia via overplanting in Indonesia. We scarifyed both an existing zoysia fairway as well as our 419 fairways and spread stolons on by hand (50 staff). Then pushed into place using a slicer. After 5 weeks we started to see the new shoots coming through, and via regulating moisture and fertility we were able to encourage the zoysia to take over. If I were to do the same now, which I'm thinking about for an upcoming project in Australia, I'll try and use a little bit of Fusilade to speed up the zoysia transition.

   
   
   
   
4. Patrick Finlen

   

   4 posts
   
   8/5/2011 5:08 PM

   You can easily do this by cutting out 12 inches of an 18 inch blade and welding back on the outer end so you have a three inch wide blade. Make two of these and you can bolt them on to a Ryan Sod cutter and have two three inch stripper blades with a 12 inch gap in the middle. Alternate your rows when stripping and you end up with rows centered on 4 1/2 inches. You can get a fairway to fill in by 18-24 months depending upon the year and how hard you push the zoysia. Many courses in Kansas City converted this way in the 1980s.

   
   
   
   
5. Kenneth Ingram

   

   18 posts
   
   8/6/2011 10:08 AM

   I did this 30 years ago. We used the old Rogers Seeder, Dropped the shaft like you do to replace blades. As I recall we welded 1/4 x 1" steel across the tips of seeder blades so we were cutting a 4" trench. Think we only had 3 or 4 of them on the shaft. On the sod cutter blade we just welded dividers so instead of cutting a 12" strip you were cutting three 4" pieces. It was a pain. I think Greg is right about strip sodding whole pieces. Kenneth Ingram, UMD