Course conditions and update

It's warming up again and we are getting ready for the marathon of spring, summer, and fall growing months ahead of us.  Beside the capital improvement projects that we have been highlighting we have a lot going on and getting ready to take place on course.

We began the first of our pre-emergent applications this past week.  This year we are making a split application of an excellent goosegrass prevention herbicide to tee complexes and greens complexes.  The shear cost of the product made us choose the high impact areas only.  In fairways and some roughs, we will be spraying a pre-emergent application that is excellent on crabgrass and hope to make a second application in April with another chemistry that will give us good control for the other summer annual weeds.  The next application to tees and greens complexes is planned for April also.  Due to the unpredictability of the types of rainfall we will receive this spring and the need to have the products watered in, we will be running sprinklers at night to get the chemical to the weed seeds.  There will be some wet fairways some mornings due to this, but we feel that the temporary inconvenience will save us greatly come summer time.

Onto the greens:  we are starting to see the color return to the Paspalum.  We are also seeing the Paspalum thin out a little.  This is expected because the nature of the grass will be to put all of it's energy into root development first and then when it's happy with the root mass it will begin putting up new leaves.  We have several steps planned to help the turf along.  First, we are doing a mini-tine aeration this week that will involve removing a small amount of turf.  The aeration will allow the fresh air into the root zone and allow the built up carbon dioxide and other gases to escape.  The aeration holes will also help us get necessary fertilizers and plant protectants down to the roots where they will be far more effective.  We aerified the putting green this past Friday to demonstrate the results and were very pleased with ball roll and quality.

Putting Green post-aeration

In addition to the aeration, fertility and spray applications, we will be using some of our new equipment to help the greens grow and smooth.  We purchased groomer blades and brushes last year that attach to our greens mowers.  Using these two products will help us to stand the turf up and thin out the old material.  This will in turf help sunlight to warm the soil and encourage the plant to begin new leaf generation and growth.  As our soil temperatures get into the 60s we will see a great new flush of growth from the plant.  I fully expect areas that were damaged from the freezing temperatures and winter shade to be healthy and green come summer time.  They will be a little slower, but we have developed plans to encourage new tissue and plans to hopefully prevent the occurance again. 

Innovation and Creativity:

In the past, when we would get large storms that would leave organic material all over the fairways, we rake the stuff loose and then blow it off.  This was a very time intensive process and could take two full days depending on the severity of the storm.  We built an attachment for our bunker rake that we are excited to try out and use this year.  Instead of having to manually rake the material loose, we will be able to drag the areas with the attachment and blow right behind it.  We will be making a tedious task efficient and speed up the recovery process for golfers and maintenance alike!