I heard today that now we are putting down more seed this year ... well this is incorrect. We have purchased so far the same amount of seed that we have for years now ... no more, no less. Where the confusion comes is in the rumors that we are putting down 835 lbs of seed per acre ... well once again this is not exactly correct. Lets do some math:
Bought 96,000 lbs of seed and we have 115 acres
-- by simple math equals 835 lbs / ac
Well it not that simple, we have to figure some subtractions:
96,000 lbs bought
- 5,000 lbs used for the greens (to stabilize the Poa Triv)
- 8,000 lbs used in hand work (missed areas, around bunkers, etc)
- 4,000 lbs used for divot mix (sometime even more)
79,000 lbs remaining
-- thus using simple math minus 2.0 acres for greens
equals 699 lbs / ac
But that to is not the entire picture. We used much more in the fairways than we do in the roughs. Historically speaking using the past six years as reference we have initially seeded the roughs at 491 lbs/ac and the fairways at 701 lbs/ac. Thus when you speak to other golf courses this is the numbers you hear ... are they right?? No.
Unlike the other golf courses I have a Master's degree thus I am very analytical and I calculate all the sweetening passes we do as well in my calculations ... others mostly do not. Thus historically, we seed our fairways to 1,079 lbs/ac, which is needed if you figure that we do not have cart paths and receive a 15 - 25% loss in our ryegrass crop.
So are the others lying ... no, they just do not know nor calculate these additional passes. And if they do, normally they do not try to explain these numbers or reasons to their GMs ... it usually confuses them since they are not agronomist.
Thus if you do the simple math with them you will discover the same at first large number. I know because I did and came up with:
855 lbs/ac for Desert Island,
837 lbs/ac for the Lakes, and even
771 lbs/ac for little old San Rosa.
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