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  The last survey was from the late '90s and out of date.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!  

Week of 10/25/2010

Looks like we are in for a nice spell of weather this week with a potential cold front rolling through the latter half of the week. 

We're taking the opportunity to do a light verti-cutting on the greens to remove a little thatch and stand the plants up a bit.  We are also trying to cut some of the runners that have shown up on some greens that have grown above the plants instead of staying in the canopy.

The whole process turned out nicely and we may do it one more time if the warm weather returns and stays around.  We are still working on removing sick and dead trees throughout the golf course as well as adding sand to bunkers, edging cart paths, late season weed control, and getting ready for the overseed next month. 

  

Overseed is coming!

Overseed is scheduled for the golf course on Monday, November 1.  The golf course will be closed that day.  In addition we will restrict cart traffic to the path only for several days following overseeding to prevent tracking the seed into the roughs.  We will be overseeding the fairways, par 3 tees, and the driving range this year.  Our watering schedule is yet to be determined, but should not affect you as you play the golf course.

We have lots of work planned this winter including tree removals, re-opening a tee on #14, edging paths, and hopefully building a nursery green.

I hope to do a better job keeping this up to date for you this year and will work to make a more consistent update throughout the winter.

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.