Turf School Day Three

Today was FRIDAY!!!!! We started the day with a soil science class. Most soil science classes I have had were from the soils perspective, but this soils class will be from the edaphic or plants perspective. We discussed the different materials that make up soils and the varous soil horizons. O, A, B, C, R. O for the organic matter on the soil surface, A for the topsoil layer, B for the zone of accumulation, C for weathering soil, and R for the parent material. We then had a golf course design class. The instructor is a local golf course designer who has designed 20 courses and worked or consulted for about 300 across the country. We discussed the use of aerial photographs and topographical maps today. We ended with turfgrass identification. This class was similar to the turfgrass development class we had on Wednesday, it is like a lab portion for that course. We discussed and looked in detail at the differences between the baldes of different turf types and the ligules, auricles, sheaths, vernations. So far most of the material has been very familiar to what I learned at BYU, but all the material has been golf course specific as opposed to landscape or other agricultural applications.