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

Frost

It is that time of year we have to start watching out for Frost.  Please obey the signs.  If you are not sure please ask in the Pro Shop.  They will give you a start time as soon as the Maintenance staff has a handle on when it is o.k. to be on the course.  When the course is closed that means the putting green is off limits.  Some members think it is o.k. to putt when there is a frost delay.

Here is a video from the USGA that explains frost issues.  I could not explain it any better.

A Skunky Job

     We have been trying to capture the animal living on the west end of the clubhouse for about a week now.  We finally know what it is.  We have caught 2 skunks so far.  I hope 2 is all we have.  The first skunk was very docile we laid a tarp over the trap and away we went but the second one did not cooperate.  He let his presents be known.  No one was sprayed but the Clubhouse smells like skunk.  Hopefully the smell will be gone very soon.

The Den was off the patio outside the kitchen

Rob drew the short straw.  He is holding a tarp to keep from getting sprayed.

Once the tarp covers the live trap we can haul the skunk away.  Notice Shane is behind the glass he did not want to participate.

13 and 14 cart path

We have finally fixed the bad cart path on holes 13 and 14.  It will be a much smoother ride now.  This job was a lot of work.  I had everyone on staff helping.  We mixed the concrete on site.  For every 94 lbs. bag of Portland cement we needed 22 scoops of sand, 33 scoops of 1 inch clean rock and about 8 gallons of water.  Some of the paths we had to haul concrete in wheel barrows.  We used a total of 45 bags of Portland cement.  My entire staff was exhausted when we finished. We still have to do some grading and sod work around the path.  Below are  a few pic's of the job

 #14 before

 Taking out old path

 Old path is gone

 Mixer

 Duane, Nick and Rob pouring concrete

 Nick and Rob finishing concrete

# 14 done

 

 

# 13 was a little easier.  We were able to use the bucket of the skid loader to haul the concrete.  No wheel barrows.  We could dump the entire mixer in the bucket.

 # 13 before

 Laying forms out

 Duane, Kyle, and Rob finishing

# 13 complete



Sunflower seeds

Sunflower seeds on our putting greens is becoming a problem again.  Please do not spit your seeds out on the greens.  If a golf ball hits a seed it will alter its path.  This is not good golf etiquette to spit or throw debris on the greens.  You might think  the mower will mow it up next time maintenance staff mows greens.  No the mower will not pick up the seed it rolls over it leaving it were it was placed.  The only way to remove the seed is to pick it up and remove it. That is something I do not enjoy, picking up nasty sunflower seed shells spit out on the greens. I know only a  few  people are doing this.  It does not take a lot of seeds to impact someone's game. Thank you for your cooperation.

Bermuda control

If you have been out to the course in the last 2 weeks you have noticed some white turf around greens on holes 5, 6, 7, and 15.  I am using a herbicide call Pylex to kill Bermuda grass out of cool season turf.  All white grass blades you see is the Bermuda grass.  We have a bad problem of Bermuda grass encroaching into our greens.  This herbicide is selective and only targets warm season grasses.  I will need 2 to 3 more applications to completely kill the Bermuda grass.  We will be targeting our collar also.

All white leaves are Bermuda grass.  All green is Fescue and Bluegrass

 

Close up of same pic. 

Fall Aerification Completed

     I am a bit late reporting our Fall Green aerification is complete.  If you have been out in the last week you would know that.  We were able to get all greens done by Wednesday.  The weather man said it was going to rain we did not hardly see any rain just a few drops.  I was concerned back nine would be delayed.  Mother Nature was on our side and kept rain away.  I would like to thank my staff for a job well done.  This is a hard job.  We were done by 3:00 p.m. each day.

Dan aerating green.  Box on back is a core collector.  Rob made it for less than $60.  If we would have purchased one it would have cost $1200

Collector makes cleaning core up much easier.  Dumps cores at end of greens

 We pick up and place in truckster.

Sand goes down next.  We use 35 tons of sand

 We then brush sand into holes

holes before we brush.

Green after we brush all holes fill in.

Fall Green Aerifacation

   

Green aerification will take place 9/8/15 and 9/9/15

 

      It is that time of the year for our fall aerification.  I know this is not a popular cultural practice.  It is not popular with my staff.  It is hard work for everyone on staff.  It is one of the most important cultural practices we do.  With out aerification greens would slowly deteriorate.  They would become spongy, would not hold golf shot, and ball roll would be very inconsistent.  Maintenance wise Isolated dry spots would increase disease and insect damage would go up. That means more money spraying chemicals to control all these problems that would arise from not aerating.
      Bentgrass is a huge thatch producer and the only way to eliminate thatch is to core aerate.  When we core aerate we remove the core and open a channel into the root zone of the green.  This allow air to flow freely to the root zone.  Turf needs the air for two thing, 1.  Turf needs oxygen to grow it absorbs oxygen from the root system.  2.  Air  help dry the roots system out which encourages deeper roots. Deeper roots firms greens up to accept golf shots.  A dryer root system has less disease and insect pressure. 
     Green are in great shape at this time and they will heal quickly from aerification and be better than they were before.  We will aerate front nine on Tuesday 9/8/15 and the back nine on Wednesday 9/9/15.  9 holes will be open each day until around 3:30 p.m.  when all 18 holes will open up.  Thank you for your patience.

Projects

     Lots of things have been happening on the course in the last couple of weeks.  First of all we got the tee's and fairway aerated.  We used our Procore on the tees and punched lot of holes.  It took three days to get this done.  We saved all the plugs from the tees to use on washouts and holes along cart paths.  We were waiting for a rain to aerate our fairways.  Fairways were getting dry and I need mother nature to add some moisture so our Aerway aerifier could penetrate through the turf.  With the wet ground we could get 6 to 7 inches down.  The last big project to get done was we removed all of the stumps on the course.  We had 33 stumps removed and it took the man 2 hours to complete.  It will take us a lot longer to remove all the excess chips and soil he left behind.  Below are some pic of all the jobs.

Nick aerating tee's.  Aeration helps remove thatch allow for better gas exchange for the turf.

 

This is what is left when done aearting

All plugs are pushed to ends of tee's and picked up.  We saved all plugs.

Dan using Aerway to aerate fairways

It leaves 1/2 inch wide slits 6 inches deep



We roll tuffs down after it is aerated

 This is our stump man grinding big oak stump on left side of 15 fairway.

That stump was about 3 to 4 feet in diameter.  Took him less than 10 minutes to remove.

Course update

     The rain finally ended but the heat and humidity was turned way up.  I still have not irrigated fairways or roughs this season.  Tee's have only been irrigated 4 times this year.  Like I said in my previous post I have never went this long without irrigating fairways and roughs.  Dan and I only hand watered greens 2 times before the month of July.  Since July it has been almost everyday.
     We did have some problems develop on our greens.  We noticed that 4 and 5 developed a lot of yellow patches 2 day after a fungicide application.  This was very  puzzling because we had our spray program up to date.  I sent a sample off to the University of Missouri and the results were quite alarming.  Dr. Miller found Nematodes.  Nematodes are a parasitic worm that feed off the root system of plants.  A few will not hurt the plant it can out grow the feeding but if you have too many the root system begins to die and plant  stresses.  As the plant is in stress it is susceptible to disease and heat stress.  This all happen right when the temperature rose above 90 degrees.  After the diagnoses we treated all greens with a insecticide that controls Nematodes.  Greens are making a come back they look much better than they did 10 days ago. This has been a year of first times for me.  I have never had a problem with Nematodes in 30 years in the business.  You can bet we will have Nematode control in next season spray program.  (See pictures below).
     Since the heat set in and # 4 and # 5 greens were invaded by Nematodes.  We have done some cultural practices differently.    We are now walk mowing greens 4, 5, 10-12.  The height of cut has been raised on these greens.  We are alternating mowing and rolling.  This elevates a lot of stress to the greens.  Fans have been set out on greens 10 and 12.  The air movement help cool the greens.  A 3 to 5 mph wind can make all the difference in a green surviving heat stress.  These changes are temporary,  we should be back to normal by September.  Thanks for you patience.

 # 5 Green July 20 Notice yellow spots

 Close up # 5

 # 5 green July 30

 Nick walk mowing # 5

Pic of Nematode feeding on root.  Nematode at top of root

Video

For those of you that do not watch Channel 5 news here is a good segment on the rain and course conditions for 5 St. Louis golf courses.  They sum it up for all of us. Hit the link below.

http://www.ksdk.com/videos/sports/golf/2015/07/11/golf-supers-somehow-make-courses-playable/30030179/

Course update

     It looks like the rain will finally be leaving us after today.  Here is rain totals.  For the month of June we received a total of  9 inches.  8 inches fell the last half of the month.  July we have already received 4.31 inches of rain.   In the last 4 weeks we have had 12 inches of rain.  Needless to say the golf course is very wet.  This is a first for me,  July 10th and I have not irrigated fairways yet this season.
       With all the moisture this can cause a number of problems on the course.  Temperatures are going to be in the low 90's this weekend with high humidity.  The high humidity will hamper the soils ability to dry out.  Water logged soils are not good.  Turfgrass needs oxygen.  Oxygen is taken up by the roots system.  If water is in the root zone very little oxygen is taken up.  Roots will begin to die.  Another problem with saturated soils is disease pressure.  The rough will have an explosion of disease this weekend.  The best thing that can happen is cooler temperatures or for the soils to dry out.  That will not happen soon enough.  Compaction will be another issue with waterlogged soils.  Compaction is easily corrected with aerification.  We are scheduled to aerate our fairways and tees this month.
     We are taking measures to help dry our greens out.  We have started to spike our greens to open them up so they will dry down quicker.  We are making slits in the green on 1.5 inch x 2 inch pattern.   Spiking is a form of aerification that is not as aggressive as punching holes. It is less disruptive but still gets the job done.  We then mow behind the spiker to smooth putting surface  If greens stay too wet we will lose turf there first.  I am not worried about disease on the greens we are on a preventative spray schedule and should be o.k.
     Cart will be on cart paths only for the next couples of day.  Please be careful.  Try to avoid passing other carts.  Please be cautious when walking to and from your ball especially on slopes.  You can easily slip and fall.  Thanks for your patience.  This has been a summer to remember.

Dan spiking greens

 

After spiking turf is tuff up

Tim mowing after spiking

Chapstick is on mowed part of green much smoother