Purple Patches

     If you are playing golf this time of year you will notice the purple patches on our greens. This happens during the winter time.  The patches can be very small to 2 to 3 feet in diameter.  This is not a disease but segregated clones that develop over time as the bentgrass ages.  Our greens were seeded with Penncross creeping bentgrass 20 to 25 years ago.  Penncross is very susceptible to segregating.  The purplish color occurs when temperatures get cold in late fall. During relatively warm sunny days (60 to 65 F) the plants are actively photosynthesizing creating photosynthates (sugars). At night the sugars are translocated down into the storage areas of the plant. However, if nighttime temperatures are cold, some of the sugars fail to translocate. This causes the turf to turn purple.  The purplish color will persist through the winter and into early spring. Once temperatures rise and turf growth begins the purplish color will disappear. Below is picture of 17 green.

This patch is in the middle right of 17 green.

My Leatherman is 4 inches long

Big Oak Down

The big Oak tree that died to the right of 3 Green.  Has been cut down and cleaned up.  The tree was between 150 to  175 years old.  Here are a few pictures of the crew cleaning up the big tree.

 Top of tree fell onto the driveway

 Staff hard at it.

 Tree was 3 to 3.5 feet across

All gone

Winterizing Irrigation System

It is that time of year again to blow all the water out of the irrigation system.  We have to rent a air compressor and pump air into our irrigation system at the pump house to push the water out through each sprinkler head.  This is a 2 day process and we have to turn all  435 sprinklers on until nothing comes out except air.  Below are a few pictures of the process.

Air compressor at pump house

 water being purged from 2 fairway

1 green finished