Skip to main content
ARS Home » Plains Area » Fort Collins, Colorado » Center for Agricultural Resources Research » Soil Management and Sugarbeet Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #350525
Research Project: Management Practices for Long Term Productivity of Great Plains Agriculture

Location: Soil Management and Sugarbeet Research

Title: Soil microbial communities on roughs, fairways, and putting greens of cool-season golf courses

Author
item ALLAN-PERKINS, ELISHA - University Of Massachusetts
item Manter, Daniel
item JUNG, GUENHWA - University Of Massachusetts

Submitted to: Crop Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/13/2019
Publication Date: 6/13/2019
Citation: Allan-Perkins, E., Manter, D.K., Jung, G. 2019. Soil microbial communities on roughs, fairways, and putting greens of cool-season golf courses. Crop Science. 59(4):1753-1767. https://doi.org/10.2135/cropsci2018.04.0220.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2135/cropsci2018.04.0220

Interpretive Summary: The microbial communities of golf courses provide many ecosystem functions and could be leveraged to provide better nitrogen fertility, biocontrol, and thatch degradation. However, little is known about bacterial and fungal species on golf courses or how management affects them. We used metagenomics to identify the bacteria and fungi among three management areas receiving few inputs (roughs), moderate inputs (fairways), and high inputs (putting greens) on three golf courses to determine how management intensity affects these organisms. Our results clearly demonstrate that putting greens show a more similar composition to one another than to the other management areas suggesting that management differences between roughs and fairways are not drastic enough to affect communities between these two areas, but the more intense management of putting greens does alter microbial communities. We saw that specific bacteria and fungi respond differently to changes in management making it difficult to predict if an overall reduction in inputs would increase nitrogen fixers and biocontrol organisms or decrease all pathogens. However, it may be possible to change management strategies to change populations of specific organisms. These results provide baseline data for future microbial studies on turfgrass.

Technical Abstract: The microbial communities of golf courses provide many ecosystem functions and could be leveraged to provide better nitrogen fertility, biocontrol, and thatch degradation. However, little is known about bacterial and fungal species on golf courses or how management affects them. We used metagenomics to identify the bacteria and fungi among three management areas receiving few inputs (roughs), moderate inputs (fairways), and high inputs (putting greens) on three golf courses to determine how management intensity affects these organisms. Based on beta diversity estimates, microbial communities on putting greens were more similar to each other than to the other areas of the golf course. Management intensity caused a decrease in fungal abundance, diversity, and richness, but not bacterial. There were few significant differences in pathogens, biocontrol organisms, xenobiotic detoxifiers, or nitrogen cycling bacteria among management areas, suggesting soil turf bacteria are resilient to changes from management inputs. Fungal abundance, diversity, and pathogens were affected by management areas, suggesting these organisms respond more drastically to management inputs. This is the first report using metagenomics to describe microbial communities on all three management areas of golf courses. The results of our study provide insight on microbial community composition on golf courses and how management intensity effects overall community composition, especially for fungi.