If you look closely at this photo you will see Poa annua mixed in the bentgrass taken on the 6th green. Notice how much more dense the Poa is. While bentgrass is an excellent grass, Highlands is one of the few climates in the world where Poa can be maintained to be a great putting surface. It grows in cooler weather which means it would heal faster from aerification. Plus, it does not require as intense an aerification program because it is not a thatch producer like the new varieties of Creeping bentgrass. It also does much better in shade on our greens...and we have a lot of shade! Our greens were seeded in 1999 with Penn A4, a variety of Bentgrass developed at Penn State University. Overtime, in our temperate rain forest climate, some Poa annua contaminated the greens. We make it a point to manage the bentgrass and give it the competitive advantage over the Poa annua through the use of growth regulators and pre-emergent chemicals.
