Weekly Update....gobble gobble

With the wonder of mobile technology, I am posting this week's update on my trip to see family in southwest Florida. This past week we have been busy with the beginning of winter maintenance.

Pine straw sweeping began as did pine straw bed replenishment. We are starting at the clubhouse and will be working the golf course beds throughout the months of December and January as time allows.

Work continues on 14 championship tee. We have begun removing the stumps and underbrush around the tee to allow sunlight and air flow through that small section of the golf course. In addition, we have been removing the stumps between 1 & 2. We have several (many) dead and dying trees to remove still and will continue through the winter.

The first fairway fertilizer application went great! We applied a nice slow release fertilizer at just under 1 pound of nitrogen per 1000 sqft to feed the new grass for about ten weeks. This takes us well into late winter and helps us prepare for a good transition. We will be working on adjusting irrigation run times the next week to provide a firmer fairway and prevent some of the ball plugging that is too common with the overseeded conditions.

Have a great Thanksgiving! Dugan and I will see you again in December....sorry no pictures this week, the iPhone does have it's limits.

Adding Photos from Last Week



Gravel pathway for cart access.

I mentioned some of the work that had been done last week in regards to the championship tee on #14 and wanted to add some photos for you to see the work in progress.

Spooky looking tee shot, not for the faint of heart!

  

Also I wanted to address the pink flags and tape that have turned up on the back 9 holes 16 through 18.  These are marking the wetland boundaries throughout the golf course for the Army Corps of Engineers and the state of Florida.  The last survey was from the late '90s and out of date.  These flags do not have any bearing on the golf course as it has been marked for play, but we are working with our Civil Engineering Squadron to replace the flags with something a little more appropriate for the golf course.  Please do not move the flags or tape nor enter into these wetland areas should your ball go into them.

What's Up(date) for November 8-12



#16 fairway striping nicely!



It's great to be out of the early cold spell we had at the end of last week.  Unfortunately, even though perennial ryegrass is a cool-season turf it still needs some warmer nights to get it going.  Night time temps last weekend were in the lower 30s and we ideally wanted to be in the upper 40s and 50s for good germination and emergence.  The low temperatures simply slowed the growth a bit and we are now seeing good emergence on the majority of the seed.  There are a few dry areas where the seed may be slow, but I am confident that it will come up nicely as we get back into the night time temperatures in the 50s and a little supplemental irrigation.



#5 Fairway



We've been working on re-establishing the championship tee on #14 and it is very exciting to see the work that has been done with the white rock pathway and tree removal.  We're going to be running an irrigation line to the tee and installing small irrigation heads to only water the tee and minimize wasting water in that area.  Our plan is to seed the tee for some late winter usage and sod with a shade-tolerant variety of bermudagrass called 'Celebration'.  We will also be adding this sod to some of the tees on the course that have declined due to excess shade and traffic.



A late week greens spray app included the second pre-emergent application to minimize Poa annua on the putting surfaces this year.  Also in the mix was a fungicide, some fertilizers and a wetting agent to get the spray mixture into the soil where it will be most effective.



#15 fairway

I'm attaching a few pictures of the fairways as Luke Survis and I went around the golf course this afternoon for an enjoyable round of golf.  We're looking forward to the rest of winter and this weekend's Retiree Chammpionship!



'What's Up'Date for the week of November 1st - OVERSEEDING!!!

This week we made the jump into winter with our overseeding of the fairways, par 3 tees, and driving range.  We had the same company apply the seed that does our spring time application for mole cricket control.  Instead of a rotary broadcast spreader, they use a blower system that applies the seed very evenly and consistently.  They are using a similar controller that we use on our chemical sprayer to monitor and control the seeding rate, quantity, and acreage covered.  A single applicator started seeding fairways around 7:30 and was finished by 1:30-2pm.  We spread the tie-ins to the approaches and tees and called it a day by 5pm.  The full overseed operation was completed by Tuesday afternoon with a few little touchups.

Then came the rain.  I was happy to see rainfall in the forecast this week to help with seed establishment.  Initially the rain started Wednesday as a nice, slow rain.  All was good.  Then the cells and system continued to grow and we got a few heavy showers.  As the rain slowed in the afternoon, Jeff and I toured the golf course to see how much, if any, seed had washed away or floated to higher ground.  To our surprise we saw little wash out except in a few spots and less floating seed than we had expected.  We actually saw in some select areas seed that had already sprouted and had put up first leaves on certain fairways.  I fully anticipate having some loss of density in a few areas and will be planning on spreading more seed to those areas, but I am very happy with the amount of seed we still found in the fairways after the rain.  As of 4:15pm November 3, we have recorded almost 2" of rain since the day started.

I'm attaching a video of the seeding operation to give everyone a better understanding of the speed and consistency that the application offers.

I was thinking this past month about how dry it had been compared to last year and pulled the records from Wunderground.com - Last October, the average temperature high was 78 degrees.  The average temperature minimum was 63 degrees.  The total rainfall was 5.8 inches.

This year we averaged 80 degrees high temperature, and 57 degrees minimum.  Total rainfall.............0.02"!!!!  What a drastic difference!