Cold and Wet

I've had a few people ask if this cold and wet spring will delay the recovery processes on the greens.  Short answer is yes.  Soil temperatures are ranging from low 40's in the mornings to low 50's in the afternoon, not ideal for germinating seed.  The covers will remain on 1,4,8 and 10 greens until we feel the greens no longer need to be "helped".   As the pictures show, some of the aerified holes have bentgrass germination, but the dead space between them does not.   These are the areas that will take longer to recover.  We may use a slit seeder to be more aggressive and insure a higher population of new seed.  The "bad" greens were seeded on April 7th, the photo was taken 14 days later.  The other question is " when will they be back to normal", It's hard to give a time frame but it could take up to 90 more days to recover from this SEVERE ice damage.  There is no question this will be a difficult summer to continue with normal cultural practices and "baby" the bad greens.

 

Core Aerification Continues

As most of you have noticed, the putting surfaces came out of winter with some injury, some worse than others.  Late last week the decision was made to Core Aerify ALL 19 greens now instead of on May 31st as scheduled.  We aerified the worst greens first, starting with 1,4,8,10 and have temporarily covered these greens due to cold day and night time temps.  Covering these greens will bring the soil temps up and promote a faster germination / recovery time.  It is unfortunate that temporary pins in the approach will be played until we feel the greens have recovered.

The back side greens have all been aerified, topdressed and seeded.  The crew finished coring 11 green today and topdressing 11,17 and 18.  17 and 18 were aerified yesterday but could not be topdressed due to lingering rain.  Next Monday we will start on 2,3, half of 4 and finish Tuesday with 5,6,7.  This temporary disruption will have lasting benefits to the greens, as well as NO coring until September.  Sorry for the inconvenience,  Thanks       Nathan  

Here We Go!

The golf season is finally upon us! The driving range opened on Thursday on mats only, and it sounds like the course WILL be open for the weekend.  Five of our seasonal employees returned on Wednesday and have been very busy the last couple days with course clean-up.  Last fall/winter trees near 6 green and the right side of 9 fairway were trimmed and has been a major part of the clean-up process.  Tomorrow will be a very busy day with mowing fairways, rolling greens, bunkers,  course accessories put out and the never ending course clean-up.  

 The golf course did receive substantial ice damage and winter dessication to some degree through out the property.  1 green and 8 green received the most damage, with about 60 percent of both greens not surviving the winter. About a month ago I took a plug out of 12 green in a poa annua "patch" because it looked unhealthy at the time thinking that the poa might take a hit this year.  Well the plug I put in the shop window never recovered and pretty much told us what to expect in the next few weeks.  When we were out on the course early this week after the snow melt, it felt like we were seeing more dead turf by the hour, not only poa annua but bentgrass as well.  Research has shown that bentgrass could survive 120 days of continuous ice cover, annual bluegrass ( poa annua ) loss occurred after 60 days with substantial loss around 75 days.  I think that we were around 18-20 weeks or 126-140 days under ice cover.  Not Good.  But on a positive note, a majority of the playing surfaces are in good shape and you would never know its only April 7th.  

      Today, with no other options, we cored ( aerified ) all of 1 and 8 greens and the front third of 4 green.  We cored at a 1" depth removing the cores, then topdressed with sand to fill the holes.  Tomorrow the they will receive about a pound of bentgrass seed/ 1000 sq.ft.  and starter fertilizer.  The greens will then be temporarily covered with a turf cover.  The benefits are huge and will promote warmer temps and a faster germination rate.  We will have temporary greens with pins in the approach  on these holes because of the covers on the greens.    We expect to see good results in 10-14 days.  Half of the greens were sprayed today with a fungicide that has a blue/green dye to it.  This fungicide that I sprayed acts like a vitamin c supplement for humans.  It resists disease and promotes health turf in return.  The other greens with be sprayed tomorrow.


I am excited to see returning members and some new faces, please email me with any questions regarding spring conditions or anything on your mind.  See ya around the course!!

March Weather Data

High Temps.

Min. 17

Max. 53

Avg.  37

Low Temps.

Min. -3

Max. 38

Avg. 21

Precipitation.   2.6" Snow/rain