Best Management Practices for Maryland Golf Courses

maintain utility turf areas that are mowed infrequently and do not have a high aesthetic requirement. Mowing equipment should be checked daily after use to ensure the best possible quality of cut. Blades should be sharpened or adjusted as often as necessary to achieve this quality of cut as dull blades can have several undesirable physiological effects, resulting in shredding of leaf tissue, increasing water loss, and boosting the potential for disease development.

Best Management Practices

• Utilize equipment maintenance regimes that allow for best possible quality of cut. • Use reel mowers whenever possible for maintaining turfgrass that requires HOC below 1.5 inches. • Keep blades of rotary mowers sharp and properly adjusted.

Figure 24. Reel mowers should be used whenever possible for maintaining low HOC. Photo credit: Joseph Roberts.

Clipping Management

Whenever possible, grass clippings should be returned to the grass canopy. Clippings return provides multiple benefits, such as:

• Nutrient recycling of N, P, and K (e.g., up to 1 pound N per 1,000 feet 2 per year) and other essential nutrients.

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