Nematode and Greens update

      If you have played golf in the past 10 day you might have noticed some strange things going on with our greens.  We have multiple double lines across greens and some yellowing and brown areas.  It took us about a week to figure out what was going on.  Our greens have been burned by the nematicide Nimitz.  On 9/11/17 I applied the 3rd and last application of Nimitz to all greens.   We used this product two times before this and had no problems.  I used same rate, same spreader and the same person applying. When the damage started showing up I thought the lines were damage made by our Vibratory Roller.  Then we saw some browning occurring between the lines.  When this started to happen I realized we had turf that was burned.  I immediately thought it was the last Nimitz application the week before.  The lines we were seeing was the wheel tracks from the fertilizer spreader used to put the product down.  After I realized we had burn I sprayed our greens with foliar fertilizer to help them recover.  After 4 days I realized it was not better.  The salesman I purchased the product from came out and took a look at the greens.  He put me in contact with the Territory Manager of ADAMA Mike Daugherty. ADAMA is the company that distributes Nimitz.  After talking to him this was not the first he has heard or seen the product burn.  That did not make me feel any better.  My question was will my greens recover.  In all cases he said greens did recover.  He passed all information I gave him to Gary Custis.  Gary is the Technical Service Manager for ADAMA.  Gary came out Tuesday 9/26/17 and looked at the damage.  He said he did not think it was due to operator error.  I told him this was the 3rd time we used the product and had no problems before.  I also told him we had 10 pails of product.  6 pails had 1 batch # and those came from local Turf supplier.  The other 4 pails had a different batch # and they came directly from the factory.  The last 4 pails are the ones we used for the 3rd application.  I told him I thought something was wrong with the last 4 pails.  He did take a sample of product with him to have it checked.  He told me he thought the greens would recover.  I told him I was worried about 5 greens that were hurt the most.  Greens 3, 10, 11, 12 and 14 have more severe burning.  He still thought they would come back.  I’m not convinced yet they will come back completely.   He also offered to pay for any extra fertility product or trade for other chemicals. We will wait for him to check out if the sample has something wrong with it.  So until we get the greens healed up we are raising height of cut and going to push our greens with fertility to get them back.  Bad news is greens will be much slower than what they should be.  Once greens get back we will lower height and regulate them to keep them growing more evenly and slowly.  I will stay in contact with ADAMA hopefully we can find out what exactly happened here.  I believe something is wrong with the last 4 pails of product we got from the factory.  Too much active ingredient or the product is contaminated.  I am not convinced the product is working on the lance Nematodes in our greens.  Thankfully the weather has cooled back off and we are going to have some good bentgrass growing weather for the next 2 weeks. This has been a real blow to me and my staff.  The greens were in good shape except for the spots we had from nematode damage.  We will recover from this.  Hopefully in couple weeks it will be distant memory.

 

overlap burn

close up of burn

Tire marks

 

 

 

Driving Range

It is getting close to that time of year we need to be thinking about closing the grass tee and moving to our mat on the Driving Range.  Here is a great video from the USGA on this topic.  It also talks about the proper way to take divots from our practice tee.

Fall Aerification

     We  completed our fall greens aerification yesterday.  I would like to thank my staff for a job well done.  It took 12 people counting myself 2 days to get this important cultural practice done.  I have a very good crew that works very hard.  So here we go in alphabetical order Thank You, Connor, Dan, Duane, Kaley, Ken, Kyle, Larry, Mike, Nick, Rob, and Tim.
     Aerating greens is a very labor intensive task that must be done if you want good greens.  We are removing thatch and allowing Oxygen to get into the root zone and CO2 to escape the root zone.  It also allows water to flow freely into the root zone.  I can talk about the health benefits of aeration  which I have done many times before.  Lets talk numbers.  You already have one number 12, 12 people to get this job done.  Our Toro Pro Core aerator punched 81 holes per sq. ft. That converts to 81,000 holes per 1000 ft. sq.  We have 88,000 sq. ft. of greens.  That means we punch a grand total of 7,128,000 holes.  My operator that ran the aerifier walked over 5 miles.  We used 80,000 lbs. of sand to fill up the holes left by the aerator. We applied 500 lbs. of Organic fertilizer to our greens.  I could keep going put I think I gave you enough info.  We punched a lot of holes and it takes 9 people to clean up the greens after they have been punched one person to apply the sand to the greens 1 person to brush sand into the holes and one person (myself) to apply fertilizer change cup and make sure everything is running as smoothly as it can.
     Our greens love aerification.  All the aeration holes we made will be gone in about 1 week.  The root system of the greens will seek out the aeration holes.  This makes our greens healthy and stronger.  It is a win win for the greens and the golfer.  Greens will not be mowed until next week.  We will be brushing and rolling greens.  By the end of next week greens will be back.  Sorry for your inconvenience at this time.

 We double verticut before aeration

After verticut

Aerating green

Cleaning up cores

Blowing off greens after picking up cores

  

Applying sand

 

 Dragging sand into open holes

Finished