The heat is here!

Wow, it's been hot this summer!!!  We've been busy on the golf course with various projects and working hard to deal with the abundant heat and humidity.  The crew has been working very hard these past few weeks dealing with the heavy rains and short week from the 4th into this hot spell we are in currently.  Please take the time to thank our great staff on the maintenance crew for all of their hard work this year.

This past week, we borrowed an aerifier from Jerry Pate Turf as a demo to aerify the putting green.  This is the same aerifier that we are considering purchasing for this quarter as our current aerifier is out of commission and we have been using Eglin GC's aerifier for the past year.  It's very smooth and provides great options for depth and spacing.  The benefit to the tractor mount is the wider unit, less wear and tear on the operator, and we only need one man to aerify as opposed to two or three previously.

After aerifying the putting green, we also topdressed all greens on the golf course.  The topdressing sand worked in nicely after a brush and roll operation.  Continued, light topdressing will assist in smoothing the surface, increasing the shot holding capacity of the green, and protect the plant from damage by mowers and foot traffic.

This past week, we got hit with some Armyworms.  The excessive rain and flush of growth on the turf really encouraged the insects to come out in droves.  We have been spraying as we see them and their damage.  Left unchecked, Armyworms can devour entire fairways in several days.  However, since they are only eating the green, leafy material recovery is relatively quick.  We sprayed the back 9 fairways last Friday and saw full recovery in affected areas by Monday.  As for pests, thankfully they are easy to control.

Upcoming work that we have planned:
*Dead, sick, fall hazard tree removal
*Edging concrete cart paths
*Fall aeration (tentatively set for beginning August)

I've been asked a few times about the status of #6 green.  I'm real happy with the progress that the green has shown.  You can see that we have been adding plugs to the thin areas still and will continue to do so.  At this time, we have decided to let that section grow up to collar length.  You may play shots that come to rest in this area as if they were on the collar of the green.  Please be careful not to take divots, however.  This area WILL NOT be marked as ground under repair.

A little time to update

Please forgive my absence in updates.  I let myself get too busy in May and forgot to update.  Thanks to those of our golfers that have asked about the updates and prodded me to get busy. 

It's been a rainy trend this week.  Let's hope for a drying trend this weekend so that we can all enjoy the golf course!

This week we started edging our greenside bunkers.  Nipping off the runners that are growing into the sand.  We'll follow the edging with some non-selective herbicide to maintain these edges longer.  Manually edging bunkers takes a solid 60 - 80 man hours and the herbicide helps to delay the frequency with which we have to edge.

Some of you will notice that the area between 10 and 16 as well as to the right of 10 is off color and getting a little thin.  We sprayed an herbicide to control bahiagrass and plan to continue the application throughout the golf course in our minimally mowing areas and under the pine trees.  This herbicide will help to keep the seedheads at bay for several weeks and allow us to focus our labor on the middle of the golf course instead of the areas so far outside the fairways.

We have a few upcoming events planned for next week: topdressing greens, removing weak/dead/fall hazard trees, and demonstrating an aerifier from Toro.  We will be punching very small quarter-inch holes in the putting green.  These will be similar to the size of holes we punched back in March...minimal disturbance and quick recovery.

Lots of action this week!

Added a picture of Dugan to end the week well...

Wow!  We started off the week a little nervous about the irrigation system.  It seems like we found the break, repaired it and the week has just gotten better every day!

Tuesday, we did the Chipco Choice application to tee complexes, fairways, and green surrounds.  The applicators slit the product in just below the turf canopy and the product will kill the mole crickets as they hatch from their eggs.  The great thing about this product is that it is guaranteed to deliver sufficient control in the treated areas until December 31. 

Thursday, we got a spray application on the greens containing some growth hormones for the grass, some fertilizer and a plant protectant from some of the problematic diseases that we might see at this time of the year.  We also had a wetting agent in the mix that helps us to use less water and keep it where we want it.  In addition to the spray application, we put out a granular fertilizer containing potassium, iron and manganese.  The potassium (K) is very important in our greens as it helps regulate water usage, assist in plant development and give the plant some extra strength in times of stress.  The other two elements are essential for color and pathogenic antagonism.  As I have discussed before, the manganese (Mn) has been scientifically proven to antagonize the causal agent associated with Take-All Patch.

On to the 4 greens that went without water for a long time.  I am very impressed with 3, 4, and 7 as to how they came through our irrigation-induced drought.  I am confident that in no stretch of time, they will look as good as the other 15 greens on the course.  As for 6...it was weak coming out of winter and this stretch did weaken it further.  However, I have looking at "grow-in" programs for Paspalum greens and am confident that within 8 weeks we will have near full coverage of the green again.  A combination of weekly fertilizer applications and light verti-cuttings will enhance the recovery.

Some of you will have noticed by now that we verti-cut the putting green on Wednesday and not the rest of the greens on the course.  I like to use the putting green as my test green for upcoming maintenance since we are without a nursery green.  We did a test run on the putting green because we were running our verti-cutters in a new fashion and wanted to see how aggressive the result would be as well as how the machine would handle it.  We gained some new insight and will be prepared to verti-cut the other 18 greens on the course Monday. 

I am attaching a few photos documenting tree shade on 4 and 6 greens and just how much tree removal will benefit the facility.

Why won't turf grow in the shade on #6?

Disregarding the hydraulic leak, notice the thinner turf in the foreground and how the whole green is covered in shade on #4.

FOUND IT!!!

After going without controllable water on the Front 9 since April 8, we finally found the leak in our hydraulic system. And it couldn't have come at a better time! This week we have the mole cricket control application going on, our second pre-emergent application to tees and green surrounds, and fairway fertilization. We really need to be able to run the water.


After the initial shock and frustration, I always try to find the good and bad in what would be called "character development" moments. I see this past week as a great opportunity for our success as a team. The maintenance team really put in a lot of effort to locate the valves to shut down running sprinklers and have a better understanding of the routing of control piping than we did. We also saw just how far we could push our greens before they started to show drought stress. Greens 3, 4, 6, and 7 went 11 days without a single irrigation cycle! However, it really shows when you compare them even to other greens on the front 9 that did get water. I am developing a plan to get them back into condition quickly.

As I mentioned earlier, we have alot of applications coming up. This is really a busy month and I can't wait to see the results of our work next month.

Thanks for your understanding of the recent irrigation dilemma and your support of our facility and maintenance team. We really appreciate all the kind words and compliments throughout this very stressful ordeal.

Water problems - Intended for Posting April 12, 2010

A quick note to explain what's going on the front 9. Sometime between last Thursday and Friday we lost the pressure in our 1/2" water line that keeps the heads down on tees and fairways for the front 9. Around the greens the heads use electricity to turn on as they are newer and were replaced during the greens renovation. The issue with the older, hydraulic system is that we can not put water in the main irrigation pipes to at least water greens while we look for the leak without every other head on the front 9 turning on thus using up all the available water and pressure to run the heads around the greens. Until we can find the leak, we are making getting water to the greens our highest priority. As such, some of the Bermudagrass on tees, fairways, and surrounds will likely go into summer dormancy. As rain and irrigation resume, they will come back to green and resume growth. Your assistance in keeping cart and foot traffic off these areas as much as possible is greatly appreciated. As we look for the leak, we are working on alternate temporary and permanent solutions including a whole new hydraulic line. Given this new challenge, we are doing all we can to still provide a great golf course and solve this problem.
Justin Wheeler, GCS. Gator Lakes Golf Course. (850) 200-7054

Course Update

Wow!  We have had some absolutely beautiful weather lately!  I hope you have been able to come and enjoy it with us!

The little rain shower we had last week really proved how all the hard work that the crew has put in this winter has paid off.  After the rain, I drove the golf course and noticed very little standing water, but instead there was water in the small swales and ditches running into our ponds.  We were able to accomodate carts on 90 degree restrictions on more holes than we would have normally after that type of rainfall.

The greens are starting to grow and I am happy with the progress.  Over the last two weeks we have really picked up our intensity on the greens conditioning.  First, we started with a 0.25" hollow tine aeration.  Our goal with this was to remove a little bit of organic material and open the greens for ventilation and water infiltration.  We had started to notice that the water was puddling and sheeting off the surface during rain events.  After the aeration, we fertilized with a high Calcium fertilizer as well as a Potassium, Manganese, Iron fertilizer.  The Calcium is critical with the paspalum as it promotes cell wall strength much like the bones in our bodies.  The Potassium and Iron help the plant to initiate growth and reduce stress in this transitional weather time.  The Manganese is a great soil fertilizer to antagonize one of the more serious diseases at this time of the year, Take All Patch.

The next week, we sprayed greens with more fertilizers and some plant protectants as well as applied a granular fertilizer.  The two critical fertilizers that we applied were Phosphorus and a combo product called Pro-Max.  We needed to apply the Phosphorus because paspalum does not initiate leaf growth until the roots are at a satisfactory level of depth and quantity.  Phosphorus and the Pro-max help to initiate root growth in the plant.  The difficult part of this application is that Phosphorus is not very usable in the soil, by the plant, until soil temperatures are above 55 degrees.  We are just now getting to those temperatures which puts us about 3 to 4 weeks behind last year.

This week was followed with more Pro-Max and liquid Iron.  If we use the analogy of a cup slowly filling and only when the level hits a certain mark growth will occur, then we are simply helping the cup fill a little quicker and hit that certain mark a little sooner as well as building reserves to continue growth.

On top of the fertility program, we are also doing a few different mowing techniques.  We have groomers on the greens mower that help to remove a little extra material and get the surface evened out while stimulating new growth.  This will help to alleviate some of the bumpiness that happens in the spring as the paspalum does not want to grow evenly like it would in the summer.

Unfortunately, we had a setback on two greens this past weekend.  We had a hydraulic line break on a greensmower on the back of #4.  After the repair, the new line broke on #14.  You will see a stripe going across those two greens.  However, the fast actions of the crew will help to alleviate major damage on those two greens as they worked very hard to wash the oil off the plant and stop permanent damage.

#6 green and those greens that were in winter shade this year are coming out slower than others, but there is growth occurring.  We are making extra applications of product and giving some extra TLC to those areas to get recovery this spring.  A plan is in the works to prevent the severity of damage again.

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!

Course and Clubhouse Landscaping

Many of you have noticed a change to the front of the golf shop over the past weeks.  We have begun our capital project to renovate the landscaping at the golf course and have started with the clubhouse.  The staff removed the existing bushes and placed them throughout the golf course in pine straw beds around tees, by the driving range and at the front entrance sign.  The "new" plants have really spruced up the areas and they look great!

We have the plan set to install new Sabal palms along with a few Sago palms.  Interlaced in the beds will be some ornamental grasses, daylilys, and society garlic.  You should see the new palms by the end of this week if the weather holds.  We will also be installing some nice Magnolia trees in select locations to break up some of the larger low maintenance areas.  I'm really excited to see the result and pleased with the looks thus far.

As you see the staff members on the course please be sure to stop them and tell them thanks for their hard work.  It's been an interesting winter and they have really worked hard to deal with all the rain, cold and frustrating conditions to make the course better and more enjoyable for all.

I've included a few before and during pictures and will update with afters soon!
Before                                                  During

The new look to the front entrance sign!

Short Update

It's been a little while since I've updated our blog. The trend of cool and wet has continued through February. The positive spin to this is that we have identified lots of areas that have been holding water in fairways and have been grading in some small drainage swales to help this water drain off the fairways and into the roughs or holding ponds.

We fertilized the greens with a high iron and manganese fertilizer to promote color and antagonize some winter pathogens. We also sprayed the greens this past weekend to take advantage of what appears to be a warming trend. We're trying not to get too anxious to push the greens too quickly as the night time temps really need to be up in the 40s and 50s for growth.

Paspalum is a very different beast from Bermudagrass as it will put all resources into the roots before growing new leaves. To encourage the plant to grow new leaves, we will be spraying and fertilizing heavily with products that enhance root growth. In addition we will be some practices to open up the turf canopy to get light and heat to the soil.

I am out of town this week at the Services Agency for an Air Force superintendents training seminar. Some of the topics covered will be fertility management, water resources, and soil chemistries. With our hope to eventually utilize the water re-use plant on base this trip will be very informative and useful.

We'll see you out on the links this week!
Justin Wheeler, GCS. Gator Lakes Golf Course. (850) 200-7054

Drainage Update

We decided to sod the areas that we raised behind 16 and 17 greens this week.  With the constant rainfalls, the soil has been washing out and without sod we would have never stabilized the soil.  The slopes came out great and we can't wait to see the sod knit together this summer!

 

Last week's rainfall was another substantial one.  We are trying to stay positive and you will notice as you make your way around the course that we have dug some surface drainage swales in areas around the front nine.  We saw dramatic improvement in water runoff as we did this last week and are in the process of repairing these areas and blending them back in.  Again, the warmer weather will help the sod knit together and a ball in these areas can be played as GUR.  We are working to mark these areas as we develop and repair them.

The drainage work going on behind 13 green and between 14 green and 15 tee is still a work in progress.  The rains have really hampered our efforts in these two areas as they are just too wet to realistically get equipment into and on.  Hopefully we will get some better weather and continue the work on those two areas soon.

On a final note:  You will notice that the back 1/3 of #6 green is rather unsightly to say the least.  We have aerified that turf and topdressed to get air into the root system.  We are also in the process of getting some core samples into a rapid diagnostic lab in case it is a disease.  It is very possible that with the winter shade and frigid conditions that the turf was weakened.  Winter shade is a very serious problem on southern turfs and we are working to identify areas that trees can be thinned or marked for removal with new trees planted in less problematic areas throughout the golf course.  Below are two very telling photos of the putting green and #14 green.