Ken Benoit

January 7, 2020 by NYS BMP ·

Through a cooperative approach between the golf industry and friends and neighbors outside the industry, best management practices have been developed that benefit all parties. Because of limitations, such as budget, staff, clientele expectations, and management decisions, not all golf courses can achieve all of the best practices described in the 2nd edition of Best Management Practices for New York State Golf Courses. However, planning for improvements over time and making small changes that meet the goals of BMPs can be achieved.

For example, while a sophisticated washwater recycling system may be too expensive for many facilities, blowing clippings off mowers onto a grassed surface is easily achieved and markedly reduces the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus in clippings that end up in washwater. With a bit more of a budget, facilities can utilize the information from the NYS BMP case study on a proto type low cost wash operation that protects water quality at Locust Hill Golf Club in Rochester. Additional case studies of BMPs implemented on golf courses in the state can be found in the Case Studies section of this website.

To adapt BMPs to an individual facility, superintendents should assess their individual site, consider their available resources (such as budget), and understand that implementing BMPs will be an on-going process. In addition, superintendents should consider multiple approaches to achieving BMP goals that can successfully protect natural resources. For example, the following describes an incremental approach to developing a nutrient management program, as published in a previous blog post “Assess and Map Your Soils” and our new publication Nutrient Management Planning for New York State Golf Courses:

• A good practiceis to assess the chemical and physical analysis of your regularly fertilized soils using a Minimum Level for Sustainable Nutrition (MLSN) Guideline interpretation, as well as looking at overall turf quality and growth, when developing a nutrient management program. Make accurate supplemental nutrient applications to targeted areas of established need.
• A better practiceis to use the Web Soil Survey as a guide to classify and sample all soils on the property using the MLSN interpretation and performance variables (quality and growth). Make supplemental applications of nutrients based on large-scale mapping in targeted areas of well-established needs.
• The best practicewould be to implement a Web Soil Survey-driven sampling program and use appropriate interpretation and performance variables as layers in a GIS database built from the sampling locations. Use this GIS database of soil properties for GPS-based Variable Rate Application equipment for precise supplemental nutrient applications to targeted areas of well-established need.

For more information on how to start your own facility BMP using the GCSAA on-line tool, see our previous blog post on creating a facility BMP.

November 27, 2019 by NYS BMP ·

Golf course superintendents in New York State can now create their own facility-specific Best Management Practices plan using the 2nd edition of the Best Management Practices for New York State Golf Courses template.

This 2nd edition, a revised, updated version of the first edition published in 2014, is incorporated into the GCSAA’s BMP on-line tool. Using the on-line tool, New York superintendents with a GCSAA log in can clone the state’s BMP plan and then use the editing features to modify as needed to create their own site-specific BMP plan.

To help get superintendents started, the following are available:

1) You will need to log in. Need help with your password? Find password information here: Facility BMP Password Help (pdf).

2) You will need to access the facility tool at https://facilitybmp.gcsaa.org/. A set-by-step guide to accessing the tool and starting your facility BMP are available here: Facility BMP How To Guide (pdf).

3) Need more detailed help with the facility BMP process? GCSAA has a pre-recorded webinar that provides information on the features of the tool and how to use them to create a facility BMP.

In addition, the New York Golf Course Foundation will be hosting workshops to assist superintendents in these efforts, with one at the Central New York conference on February 13th in Rochester. More workshops are planned in several locations next winter, depending upon the availability of funding. These workshops will be announced on this website and NYGCF’s Twitter feed.

November 19, 2019 by NYS BMP

As a property that is pinched between two major highways in the NY/NJ metropolitan area, we constantly see expected and unexpected things show up in our bodies of water carried by surface water runoff. Our ponds were experiencing an algal build up and blooms in the warm months and we wanted to know – were we causing the problem or was it originating off site? Therefore, we began testing our surface waters to quantify the nutrient load as it entered and departed our property to answer the question.

Around the same time, we began experiencing odor problems from low lying areas that acted as collection points for surface runoff, accumulating silt deposits and leaves. But the odor coming from these areas could not be explained by decomposition of organic matter alone. We tested water in these areas and saw spikes in the total nitrogen levels. But as the problem worsened, we decided to also test for fecal coliform. This testing found levels at about 12,000 fecal colonies/100 mL of water tested; this compares to a regulatory requirement of 200 or less fecal colonies/mL allowed for swimming. Therefore, we used our test results to inform the neighboring town north of the property that the issue was coming from upstream and not originating from our property. The town’s resulting inspection of the upstream drainage flowing into the property determined that a concrete drain pipe crossing under the town sewer line had been compromised, resulting in a leak that drained onto our property. This is a case and point of the saying “s**t flows downstream.”