Poa Annua

Annual bluegrass or Poa Annua, is one of the most common weeds of residential and commercial turfgrass in the United States. Poa is particularly hard to control because each little plant will produce over 100 seeds. Poa is most active during cool weather, when bentgrass is not. This will allow the Poa to out compete the bentgrass during the fall, winter and spring. Any voids in the turf such as ballmarks or weak areas in the turf the seed heads from the Poa will find and germinate during this time period. The seeds from Poa are tough and can survive multiple seasons in the soil before germinating. Hot temperatures are the only thing that Poa does not do well in. Last summer was cooler and wetter than average which allowed the Poa to stay healthy all year and produce more plants this spring. The more seed heads we can control the less multiplying of Poa we will see the following year.

We are currently spraying to control seed heads throughout the spring when the plant is most active. We are also going to cut out or plug the Poa from greens throughout the golf course which are manageable. Number four green and the big putting green are past the point of being able to plug out. A few years ago in the rough between the cart path and green on #4 was mostly all Poa, this is one of the biggest reasons why number 4 looks the way it does today. The seeds we tracked onto that green from the rough by people walking from their cart to the green. This was all sodded out in the fall of 2012 to help prevent more contamination.

The long term solution for the 4th green is to re-grass the green back to all bentgrass. Obviously this will require a substantial commitment of both time and money, and it is an option currently under consideration.

Please remember to fix all you ballmarks and remind your playing partners to do the same! Thank you for helping the maintenance staff take care of the golf course!

Poa growing in a ballmark that was not repaired