Course update

     What a summer we are having.  The heat and humidity are full throttle.  It does not take hardly any activity to be drenched in sweat.  The turf has the same problem we have it cannot cool itself when the humidity is extremely high.  With the added pressure of high temperatures this can be very hard on our cool season turfgrass.  Greens are the most susceptible to problems.  We are taking precautions to help our greens make it through this rough time.  On Monday we vented our greens with 1/4'' holes.  This helps the root zone of our greens get much needed oxygen.  It also helps keep our root zone drier.  What happens when you have a wet area like your shower at home that stays wet or moist?  You get mold and mildew.  We do not want our root zone to get mold.  That could be devastating.  We are also alternating mowing and rolling our greens.  Mowing is very stressful on our bentgrass greens.  We want to minimize as much stress as we can.  You will see a little slow down of ball roll.  This will be temporary until we get cooler temperatures.  When night time temperatures get below 70 degrees our bentgrass greens can recuperate.  They get no rest when night time temperatures are in the high 70's or above.  We cool down a little next week.  I know I can't wait. 

 Nick venting greens.  It takes 6 hours to vent all greens.

 Holes are 1/4'' on 2.5''X2.5" centers

Tim rolling our greens.

Course update

     It has been 1 month since my last post.  We have been very busy the past month.  I guess the biggest news this spring was there was no spring.  We set a 124 year record for the hottest May.  That is a record I wish we didn't break.  April was one of the coolest months on record.  We went from nothing growing to full throttle in a matter of days.  Despite the cold then hot weather the golf course is doing well. 
     The greens are in great shape.  I have been using some new products to help our greens fight off Nematode pressure we have been dealing with the past 4 years.  I am using a combination of Organic and biological products in conjunction with nematicides.  Looks like it is working so far.  We have outstanding roots in our greens.  I have tested 4 greens for Nematodes.  All 4 that were tested came back positive for nematodes.  2 of the greens had 3 different Nematodes over the threshold the other 2 just had 1 over the threshold.  The biological products go out every month and we have been using 2 different nematicides alternating them every 2 weeks.  I am keeping my fingers cross that we will not see any damage.  We do have a spot on the front part of 12 green.  It is not Nematode damage.  Looks like it is from urine.  I believe a dog or maybe a deer urinated on the green.  It was on the old flag stick.  We will have to plug out the spot.

If you look at bottom of the dead spot you can see the half moon ring where old cup was.

     The rest of the course is doing very well.  We did have some bermudagrass winter kill.  We will need to do some sodding on # 17 fairway.  It did not get cold enough to kill all the Bermuda out right only small patches and some other it just thinned out.  We will be treating all of our fairways and tees this year to eliminate bermudagrass.  We did a test last year on 3 different fairways. It work very well.  This will be a program we will have to commit to for a few years to get a handle on the bermudagrass encroachment in fairways tee's and green surrounds.

     We have a few projects we need to work on this summer.  We will be adding drainage to our low areas in 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 15, 17, fairways.  We will be installing a new catch basin in front of 12 greens. We will be leveling at least 3 tees this summer.  # 7 gold/red, #10 white and # 13 white.

Thanks for reading my blog I hope you find it informative.  See you on the course.