First Week of Classes and GLTE

This week was the first week of classes and i must say it was the smoothest first week of a semester i have ever encountered.  I like all of my classes thus far, and it was great to catch up with all of my classmates and friends after a long enjoyable break.  Highlights of the first week include an experiment we started in irrigation class involving irrigation (naturally), and soil amendments.  I took some pictures of our starting replications which is posted below.  3 of our the pots are 100% sand and the other 3 are 80% sand and 20% peat.  We are using perennial ryegrass for our grass and we will test factors such as germination times, growth, and the effects of removing the pots from their water source on Feb 17th...

On Wednesday i had the great pleasure of attending my first Great Lakes Trade Expo, where i watched the Dr. of Greenspeed do his talk show format segment.  Alot of my friends were honored for scholarships they earned (all 2nd year students).  Also, Bob Vavrek gave a speech about his top 11 game changers in the golf industry during his time with the USGA.  The talk was stimulating and fun to listen to.  The Changes ranged from budgeting, to trees, to bunkers and many other topics.  At the end of the talk show there was a list compiled by Dr. Nikolai that will be published in the next Migcsa magazines of the top 14 things that have changed superintendents careers in the state of Michigan.  I look forward to reading that article.  Wrapping this post up let me say how proud i am to be a Spartan and more over how proud i am to be a member of the Turf Club at MSU.  Tyler Manly, Aaron Deloof, Taylor Doorlag, and Nick Wolcott are our officers and they have worked hard to show how much this program means to us.  We have been diligently searching for funds to send our members to the STMA conference in Long Beach and the GCSAA conference in Las Vegas next month.  We had a wonderful booth at the GLTE in conjunction with the MTF who has done so much to help us out.  I look forward to being a part of the Turf Club next year, hopefully as an officer.

Dr. Thom Nikolai

Turf Club Booth at GLTE