Turf Care

Distance Learning -Foundation Turf and Lawn Care Course

• Work in the Turf Industry -this can be a great starting point
• With an understanding of lawns and lawn care; start your own Lawn Care Business
• Seek employment with a golf course, sports ground or other turf facility

When planning a new lawn, or renovating an old one, it is important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of different grasses, and why certain grasses are used in preference to others. The intended or actual use (and maintenance) of a particular area is the deciding factor.

For example bent grasses and fescues such as Chewings and Creeping Red can withstand lower mowing than other grasses. The bent grass strains known as Penncross and Palustris are both stoloniferous and tend to become spongy with age. If these bent are used alone or with fescues in a lawn, bowling green or golf green, annual scarifying, preening and coring is essential for their maintenance. In a park or sports oval these varieties of bent tend to colonise and form patches choking out all other grasses giving a very patchy appearance.

This course teaches you about the different grasses, the techniques used to establish them and the measures that must be taken to maintain an acceptable surface.

Lesson Structure

There are 11 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction
   • Benefits of Turf
   • History of Turf
   • Turf Varieties
   • Lawn Mixes
   • What Lawn to Grow Where
2. Turf Grass Physiology
   • Scope and Nature of Grass
   • Morphology of a Typical Grass Plant
   • The Grass Flower
   • Identifying other Distinguishing Characteristics
   • Grass Roots
   • Grass Shoots
   • Root Shoot Ratio
   • Recuperative Potential
   • Ways of Identifying a GrassKey to Common Turf Grasses
   • Identification Tips for Rye grasses, Bents, Fescues and others
   • Descriptions of Major Warm Season Grasses; couch, zoysia, carpet grass
3. Turf Establishment
   • Introduction
   • Soil Preparation
   • Seeding; seed quality, planting method, after planting care
   • Sodding or Instant Turf
   • Other Techniques; plugging, stolonizing, sprigging, chitted seed
   • Work Scheduling
   • Estimating Costs
4. Soils
   • Understanding soil, introduction and texture
   • Soil Blends
   • pH, Buffering
   • Improving SoilsCalculating Quantities of Soil Needed
   • Nutrition
   • Fertilizing Turf
   • Drainage
5. Turf Weed Problems
   • Introduction
   • How Weeds are Spread
   • Non Chemical Weed Control in Turf
   • Chemical weed Control in Turf
   • Effective and Safe Herbicide Use
6. Turf Pests and Diseases
   • Introduction
   • Chemical and Non Chemical Control
   • Dry Patch
   • Heat Scals
   • Algae
   • Mosses
   • Chemical Contamination of Turf
   • Damping Off
   • Brown Patch
   • Fairy Rings
   • Dollar Spot
   • Rust
   • Smut
   • Pests occuring in Turf Grass
   • Review of Commonly Used Pesticides and Fungicides
   • Spraying Equipment
   • Domestic Lawn Care Program
7. Turf Maintenance Techniques
   • Introduction
   • Turf Mowers
   • Mowing Guidelines
   • Length of Cut
   • Getting a Clean Cut
   • To Catch or Not to Catch
   • Pattern of Cutting
   • Cutting Steep Slopes
   • After Mowing, and lawn clippings
   • Mower Safety
   • Other Turf Maintenance Techniques
8. Irrigation - An Overview
   • Water and Plant Growth
   • Managing water retention and loss
   • Understanding movement of Soil Water
   • Types of Soil Water
   • Testing for Soil Water
   • Estimating Water Needs
   • Irrigating Turf
   • Rate, Timing and Period for Watering
   • Cyclic Watering, Pulse Watering
   • Irrigation Equipment
9. Playing Fields and Bowling Greens
   • Gradients for Sporting Facilities
   • Dimensions for Sports Facilities
   • Construction Procedure for a Playing Field
   • General Specs for Golf Course Preparation
   • Cricket Wicket Construction
   • Maintenance and Repair of Turf Wickets
   • Marking a Wicket
   • Treatment after Play
10. Managing Established Turf
    • Introduction
    • Golf Course Care and Maintenance
    • Mowing
    • Watering
    • Renovation
    • Fertilizing
    • Weed Control
11. Establishing Ornamental Turf
    • Introduction
    • Turf in Shade
    • Establishent of Ornamental Turf
    • Planning and environmental auditing

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

Aims

• Identify the range of grasses and other species available for turf culture.
• Explain the management of soils for growing turf.
• Identify methods for the establishment of turf.
• Explain the management of problems in turf including weeds, pests and diseases.
• Explain maintenance practices used in turf management.
• Plan the development of different turfs used for sport.
• Develop plans to establish a turfed area.
• Develop management strategies for the care of established turf.

Scope of the Turf Management

Turf Management is a great deal more complex than what many people think; and those who work in this industry include very highly skilled, experienced and well paid experts.
To reach the top of this industry, a person needs to develop knowledge and skills in several different areas, including:

• Horticultural Techniques -growing plants (pspecifically turf species)
• Scientific Knowledge -soil science, botany, pathology, etc
• Management Skills -to manage people, materials, equipment, etc
• Machinery and Equipment -using, maintaining, repairing etc

As your career develops, you may end up specialising in one area of turf; or you may continue to be involved in many.

Turf Equipment

The turf industry uses a great variety of equipment, both manual and mechanical, for repairing and renovating turf. Some equipment is highly specialised, designed to be used for a particular type of turf, for instance bowling greens, while other equipment may have a much wider application.

This equipment may include:

·         Aerators such as corers, drills, spikes

·         Slicing machines

·         Thatch removal machines

·         Scarifiers

·         Sod cutters

·         Air injectors

·         Spray equipment

·         Spreaders for fertiliser, lime, and so on

·         Tractors

·         Machines to remove water such as sponge rollers

·         Rakes, forks

·         Mowers

·         Ditch witches, trenchers. 

Managing Turf Health

If a turf is healthy, the likelihood of problems is diminished. Health can be impaired by weeds, pests, diseases, and so forth.

A healthy turf will resist disease, recover quickly from attacks by pests, and compete strongly with weeds. Nevertheless, there will still be occasions where a turf will be adversely affected by pest, disease or environmental problems even if it is in seemingly perfect health.

You can keep a turf healthy by:

• Maintaining optimum fertility. Ideally you should monitor levels of nutrients. The simplest way is to use an EC (Electro Conductivity) meter.
• Remember to feed when needed, but do not overfeed. Too much can be just as bad as too little. Avoid feeding when the turf is not growing. It is inappropriate to fertilise just prior to a dormant period. Feeding a month or two before a dormant period however, may reduce the period of dormancy.
• Remove toxins. In order to carry away unused fertiliser, salts, and so on it is imperative that drainage is good and watering is adequate.
• Do not inadvertently encourage pests. Avoid developing conditions conducive to pest, disease or weed development. In some cases, the conditions which create the aforementioned problems may be the same as the optimal conditions required by the turf. If so, other control methods, such as chemical treatments must be used at appropriate times.
• Irrigate in optimum fashion. The design of the watering system should ensure full coverage of turf areas without watering the surrounding growth. It is especially important to avoid irrigating or fertilising trees or weeds adjacent to turf, as this may encourage their growth into the turf.
• Deep water trees to keep their roots away from the turf.

Renovating Damaged Turf

Turf is often badly damaged by an event or series of events. It often has to be brought back into a useable condition again within a very limited time frame. It may require a major renovation effort to do this. At the end of a sporting season a sportsground might be significantly degraded. Ideally there will be a rest period before the ground is used again. During this time an intensive effort can be put into renovation and repair. For instance, during a major golf tournament, areas of a golf course may be damaged by spectator traffic. This may then be fenced off for a period to rejuvenate.

Other examples might include a party in a home garden, a wedding reception, the use of an inflatable paddling pool over summer, all of which may result in a badly damaged lawn that requires an intensive effort to bring it back to ‘normal’ condition.

FREQUENT QUESTIONS

Why Choose This Course

• Unique course materials (developed by our staff) and more current than some colleges (many reviewed annually); as a result, ACS graduates can be more up to date.
• We work hard to help you understand and remember it, develop an ability to apply it in the real world, and build networks with others who work in this field (It’s more than just serving up a collection of information –if all you want is information, buy a book; but if you want an education, that takes learning to a whole new level).
• Start whenever you want, study at your own pace, study anywhere
• Don’t waste time and money traveling classes
• We provide more choices–courses are written to allow you more options to focus on parts of the subject that are of more interest to you; a huge range of elective subjects are offered that don’t exist elsewhere.
• Tutors are accessible (more than elsewhere) – academics work in both the UK and Australia, 5 days a week, 16 hours a day. Answering emails and phone calls from students are top priority.
• We treat students as individuals –don’t get lost in a crowd. Our tutors communicate with you one to one.
• Extra help at no extra cost if needed. When you find something you cannot do, we help you through it or will provide another option.
• Support after you finish a course –We can advise about getting work, starting  business, writing a CV, etc. We can promote students and their businesses through our extensive profile on the internet. Graduates who ask will be helped.
• Support from a team of a dozen professional horticulturists, living in different parts of the UK, and in both temperate and tropical climate zones of Australia.

About ACS

ACS was started in 1979 by John Mason, who at the time was a gardening author, horticultural consultant and lecturer in horticulture at several colleges across Melbourne (in Australia).  Over the summer that year John discovered that there were thousands of applicants going to be turned away from horticulture courses at Burnley Horticultural College (now Melbourne University). There were simply too few courses being offered for the number of people wanting to study horticulture in Australia. This situation prompted a move to establish a correspondence course at Burnley; but after months of unsuccessful lobbying for support from government; John wrote a course, and with help from a colleague at Council of Adult Education, marketed it.

Standards were originally set in line with what were seen to be the standards of Australia's top horticultural college; and over the years, those standards have never been reduced. This makes our courses longer and more demanding than some other colleges; but it has also led to us building a credibility that stands tall in the horticulture industry across the world. 

In the early 1990's John started visiting the UK and becoming involved with the horticulture industry there. Around the mid 1990's ACS began offering RHS courses, and in 2003, John was formally recognised for his contribution to British Horticulture by being made a fellow of the Institute of Horticulture. ACS, as a school, established an office and staff in the UK in 2001, and has expanded considerably since then. Today it is formally affiliated with five other colleges in the UK (including Warwickshire College); all of who license and deliver ACS courses. 

A team of leading horticulturists work for the school's horticulture department, including 12 faculty members in both the UK and Australia

How You Study

• As soon as you enroll, we send an email to explain it all.
• We direct you to a short orientation video (downloadable over the internet) to watch, where our principal introduces you to how the course works, and how you can access all sorts of support services
• You are either given a code to access your course online, or sent out a CD or course materials through the mail (or by courier).
• Work through lessons one by one, each lesson typically having four parts:
• An aim -which tells you what you should be achieving in the lesson
• Reading -notes written and regularly revised by our academic staff
• Set Task(s) -These are practicals, research or other experiential learning tasks that strengthen and add to what you have been reading
• Assignment -By answering questions, submitting them to a tutor, then getting feedback from the tutor, you confirm that you are on the right track, but more than that, you are guided to consider what you have been studying in different ways, broadening your perspective and reinforcing what you are learning about
• Other - Your work in a course rarely stops at just the above four parts. Different courses and different students will need further learning experiences. Your set task or assignment may lead to other things, interacting with tutors or people in industry, reviewing additional reference materials or something else. We treat every student as an individual and supplement their learning needs as the occasion requires.
• We provide access to and encourage you to use a range of supplementary services including an online student room, including online library; student bookshop, newsletters, social media etc.
• We provide a "student manual", that is a quick solution to most problems that might occur

Recognition

• ACS has a highly respected international profile: by employers and academics alike. People are more aware of us than many other distance education schools –just do a search for “horticulture distance education courses” and see what comes up on the internet; or search for ACS Distance education on Facebook or Linked in, and see how many connections we have compared to other colleges.
• Recognised by International Accreditation and Recognition Council
• ACS has been educating people around the world since 1979
• Over 100,000 have now studied ACS courses, across more than 150 countries
• Formal affiliations with colleges in five countries
• A faculty of over 40 internationally renowned academics –books written by our staff used by universities and colleges around the world.

Extra Books or Reference Materials

• The course provides you with everything that you need to complete it successfully.
• Assignments may ask you to look for extra information (eg. by contacting nurseries, visiting gardens or searching the internet), but our school's resources and tutors are always available as a back up. If you hit a "roadblock", we can quickly send you additional information or provide expert advice over the phone or email; to keep you moving in your studies.
• Some students choose to buy additional references, to take their learning beyond what is essential for the course. If a student wants to buy books, we operate an online bookshop offering ebooks written by staff at the school. Student discounts are available if you are studying with us. The range of e books available is being expanded rapidly, with at least one new ebook being written and published by our staff every month. See www.acsebook.com