It has been awhile since my last post. We have been very busy. We have a number of project that have been completed. One of the biggest accomplishments is our greens are almost healed up from the Nematode and Root Rot issues from July. This was the hardest summer I have ever had in my 35 years as a Golf Course Superintendent. I am optimistic this will not happen again. I have a different approach for next year. I am build my soil biology up with biological products that will grow greater root mass in our greens and have a negative effect on Nematodes. Some of these biological product are in fact natural Nematicides. I have always used biologicals but not to this extreme. Some of these products like crab shell meal, soap box tree extract, compost, sesame seed oil all have some degree of control to Nematodes. I am also using some forms of Bacteria and Fungi products that also have control against Nematodes. I know I will not kill all of them but if I can keep numbers low enough to get our greens through July and August with minimal damage that is a win.
Here are the list of project we completed since August.
- #4 fairway bunker was rebuilt.
- #8 cart path from ditch in front of green up past merge from #17 was fixed.
- #1 trees to north of green were removed to help with turf loss on right side of green below bunker.
- Aerified all greens.
- DryJect all greens.
- Fixed cart path washouts on holes 6 and 12.
- Sprayed second application of Bermuda grass control on fairways and tees.
- Fix sink hole that developed at the front entrance from bad culverts.
#4 fairway bunker was reshaped and bottom was raised about a foot. New drain lines and sand installed. This was a much needed improvement.
Schaefer-Meyer edging bunker
#4 bunker finished
#8 cart path was in bad shape. We had about a 2 foot ditch running under the path. We also put a culvert in at ditch crossing. No more carts running through water. Dobsch Construction did great work.
You can see the ditch running under path
Ready for concrete
Just finished second pour.
Sod going down.
We removed some big trees to north of #1 green. It is very hard to get any turf to grow near the cart path. The large trees were taking all of the moisture. This will help us to maintain better quality turf from the bunker to cart path turn behind #1 green. We still have to remove the under brush and clean up the tree tops.
Before from back of green
Before front right of green
After from behind green
After from front right of green
We aerified all of greens twice this fall. In late September we punch holes with our ProCore. This is the first time we were able to aerify, topdress, brush, apply fertility and water in one day. We used 3/8 tines. Most holes were filled in by the end of the week.
Picture taken after we brushed greens .
October 5th we did a new process called DryJect. DryJect takes water to create a void in profile of green and sand is sucked back into the hole. I ordered some finely ground compost and we mixed it with our dry sand. We used 80 lbs of compost to 2000 lbs of sand. This makes roughly a 95% sand to 5% compost blend. The compost will give our greens organic matter to help fight off Nematodes. The compost product has shown some good success in Florida. We will do this again next March before we core aerate. DryJect is very labor intensive. The DryJect crew brought 2 machines. We needed 3 people per machine to keep our blended sand in machine as it went across green. We used 24 tons of sand and it had to be hand loaded into the hopper of the DryJect machine.
3''X3'' hole pattern
The cart paths that cut across the fairways on holes 6 and 12 were repaired. This is not the first time we have repaired these two areas. Water uses the edge of path on 6 and it cuts out the sod. Once water get a channel it keeps on eating it out. #12 cart path is a different situation. Before we put the catch basin in at the fence any big rain event we would get mud and silt would come down from the farm to the north of the golf course. Just before you make the turn to go across the fairway we have about 1 foot of mud and silt that was washed down from the farm above us. This changed the drainage pattern of the rough and fairway. Water now sets along the cart path when it used to flow down the hill to the ditch. We will see if our fix will work. We might have to put a catch basin in at cart path if it comes back.
Cart path at 12 Fairway.
The past 3 years we have been spraying the bermuda grass encroachment in our fairways and tees. This is a slow process Bermuda grass is relentless. Just like the Energizer bunny it just keeps going. We are making some progress. I am using two different herbicides to take the Bermuda grass out of our Zoysia fairways.
The off color turf is Bermuda grass
Closeup of Bermuda grass injury from herbicides.
Lastly we found a sink hole at the front entrance. After some exploratory digging we found the problem. We have 2 culverts that merge together at our driveway and Country Club Rd. The old forms that were used to connect the two pipes into the concrete box culvert going under Country Club Drive rotted away and the gravel under the asphalt was washing into the box culvert. Luckily we found this before a vehicle did. We replace both rusted culvert pipes. We replaced them with ADS plastic pipe, concreted it back to the box culvert running under Country Club Rd. We need a good rain so the rock fill can settle. After fill has settled we will repair asphalt.
Old culvert running into box culvert.
Installing new culvert pipe.
Concreting pipes into box culvert.
