Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Maintenance Staff.

Winter Play

     I believe there has been some confusion to why golf course has been closed previously. The week of November 10th we received 4'' of snow.  By Friday November 15th we had a large portion of the golf course still covered with snow.  Temperatures Friday morning were in the  20's by noon the temps were climbing into the 40's.  Some members  thought course was closed because greens were thawing or frozen.  Course was not closed for thawing greens it was closed because of snow cover.  We opened the course around 12:30 pm.
      I believe some people think I am closing the course when greens are frozen.  I have never closed the course when greens were frozen.  Limited play on frozen greens is acceptable.  I have a problem with thawing  greens, the top is thawed or thawing but the underlying soil is frozen.  I like to see the freeze line down to 2.0'' to 3'' deep.  If we do get root shearing at that depth I can get our roots back to normal lengths by summer.  If play is allowed when freeze line is shallow 1/2'' to 1.5'' and we get root shearing.  I will have a harder time growing the roots back down to the desired depth we need for summer. In severe cases we could actually lose turf from wear and winter desiccation.
     Here we are again with 4'' - 5'' of snow covering the golf course.  Temperatures will be in the 50's  by this weekend.  Play will be allowed if greens are completely frozen, thawed down to 2'' and the majority of snow cover is gone.  You can get updates from the proshop.  If you are on twitter you can follow me at @ed_wachter for course updates.
     Root shearing can be very detrimental to our greens.  The illustration below will help you visualize what can happen.

Drainage work on #3 and 6 Greens

     We have been busy this week working on some much need drainage around # 3 and # 6 greens.  The back left of 3 green has been a issue for some time now.  We went in with a track hoe and installed french drain with laterals.  While digging out the drain we discovered a lot of sandstone rock.  Looks like the water is traveling on top of the rock layer.  The layer is 10 to 12 inches deep.  It was a difficult project because we were working around the irrigation lines for the green.  We seed and strawed the trench.  The area is marked as ground under repair.

Digging #3

Drain line and gravel installed #3

#3 ready for seed

#3 finished

     #6 was not as big a project as #3.  We had a broken drain line near the back right sprinkler head.  We dug up the bad section added some laterals and seeded and strawed this section.  The areas is marked as ground under repair also.

 Drain line and gravel installed #6

 We put in 3 laterals in #6

#6 finished

  We have 4 more greens we will be fixing drainage issues.  # 7, #9, #14, and #17.  Hopefully mother nature will give us more great working weather this winter to get this much needed project completed.

Driving Range Mat

     We have installed new Driving Range Mat.  The Fiberbuilt system.  This is a new and improved mat system.  It is built on a frame.  The mat is off the concrete surface about 1 inch.  This allows water to drain below the mat.  We have 2 types of artificial grass to hit off of.  1 strip of longer grass that has an adjustable tee placed into it.  You can also hit off of the standing area mat if you wish this is the same material and height that our old mat was like.  We have 7 double sided hitting areas and one spot is for right handed hitters only.  This is a huge improvement from our old mat.

 Laying down the base.

 Base is held together by pins

 Laying mats down in base.

Finished

Soggy

     

     What a year it has been.  As of today we are at 54'' of precipitation since 1/1/19.  We still have 2 months left in the year and I believe we could reach 60''.  The record rainfall in a years in St. Louis is 61.24'' we might be flirting with a record before this year ends. The average rainfall for a year is around 43''.  Since 2009 we have average in the low to mid 40's except for 2012 we had 33'' and 2016 we had 55'' .  

     The good news was we were able to keep our cost down for electricity.  We did not need to water the golf course as much  and we did not need  to fill our lake up. It did stay dry enough for us to get 3 green perimeters sodded last fall.   #7 cart path  and the drainage issue at the Black tee was fixed.

      The bad news is we had a lot of projects on the books that we could not get done because it was so wet.  Drainage work in our fairways.  Limb trimming throughout the golf course.  Renovating #4 fairway bunker were the three biggest projects that have been pushed back until this winter. We also had some winter kill of our fairways and some tee's.  I had to order 2 truck loads of zoysia grass sod to fix our # 9, and # 12 fairways.   #13 red/gold, #16 white/blue  and #18 white tees also needed sod.  Another problem we are facing is our local sod farms lost most of there sod from the flooding.  They ran out of sod this fall.  I had planed to finish sodding our remaining green perimeters on holes 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 and 16.  That project will  now be pushed back to next year.

    It was not a bad year by no means.  The golf course is in good shape.  Membership is growing and rounds of golf are up.  The future looks bright for Franklin County Country Club.  It will dry out and projects will get completed.  Temperatures are a little on the cooler side this fall.  Hopefully it won't last and you can still get out and enjoy the Golf Course. 

Aerification time

     September 30th. and October 1st. is our scheduled dates for this falls green aerification.  This is a very important cultural practice.  We will be using 3/8'' tines on 2''x 2.5'' spacings.  Aerification helps our greens in many ways.  Thatch reduction, water movement down through the root zone, and air exchange in the root zone.  We want oxygen around our roots and co2 out.  Too much co2 will cause our root system to die.   In about 7 to 10 days you won't know we poked any holes in the greens.  The green will respond positively to the aeration.  They will grow and have a new glow to them.

Bermuda grass update

     We have 3 applications of our Herbicides to control Bermuda grass on all fairways, two applications on tee's and 2 applications on our green surrounds.  If you have  played golf  you will notice some brown areas in our tees and fairways.  Our green surrounds you will see white leaves on some of the grass.  The brown and white grass is the Bermuda grass being hurt by the Herbicides we are using to eradicate this invasive grass.  We will continue this practice until all Bermuda grass is completely out of our greens, tees and fairways.

White leaves of Bermuda grass #15 perimeter

Bermuda in #9 intermediate cut.

Bermuda grass eradication

   

     We have applied our 2nd application of herbicides to remove the Bermuda grass contamination in our fairways and tee's. We are using Fusilade II at 6 oz. per acre and Turflon Ester at 28 oz. per acre on fairways.  Tees we are using Acclaim extra 24 oz. per acre and Turflon ester 28 oz. per acre.  The reason for using different herbicide on tees is because I do not want to hurt any cool season grasses that surround the tee's.  Acclaim will not damage the cool season turf.   This is a slow process, we will continue monthly applications into the fall.

Bermuda grass on the right side of picture is off color.

Course update

    July did not disappoint.  Hot humid and nearly 7'' of rain. We went out 2 times this month and solid tined all greens. Air in the root zone very important when temperatures are in the mid to upper 90's.  Bentgrass need oxygen and the root system is how they get it.  Our nemesis was back again this summer Nematodes.  They always show up when temperatures are hottest.  We have been using 2 different nematicide to control this pest.  They were not 100% effective but they did keep damage down.  Any thin areas will recover.
     We did get few projects completed.  # 7 cart path has been replaced from black tees down to red/gold tees. All the water that ran down the path has been eliminated.  Please be careful running down the path we have new sod along both sides of the new path.  The large white oak tree before 8 greens has been cut down.  We still have to get the log removed.   We had 28 stumps removed.  We are working on filling, seeding and strawing the holes.
    Weather has been fabulous the past week.  It will warm up a little then move back down into the mid to low 80's.  Great time to come out and enjoy the golf course.

Solid tining greens.

 Taking out old # 7 cart path.

 Halfway finished

Completed

White Oak #8 on the ground

10 Irrigation leak

     10 fairway developed a wet spot couple of months ago.  We thought it was a valve since all the water was coming out of the valve box.  After digging it up we found out the valve was good.  Water was following the irrigation line.  We found the leak on a 8'' mainline tee.  This line comes directly from the pump station.  We had to order parts to fix the tee.  Our local distributor does not carry parts for anything larger than 6''.  The entire tee was covered with concrete about 12'' - 14'' thick.  That was the most concrete I have ever seen on any irrigation project.  To isolate the leak we had to turn off  3 valves.  This made it difficult to water turf on the back nine. Water had to come all the way from # 4 fairway past Clubhouse down 18 fairway back to 17.  The further you got away from 4 the weaker the pressure was.  Back down in 12 and 13 fairways we could not get fairways heads to run properly.  We could only run greens 1 station at a time.  We had the water off to the leak for 3 days.  2 days to install the new tee and 1 day for our concrete thrust block to cure. This was the biggest leak I have ever fixed.  I am glad this job is finished.

 Old tee covered in concrete

 The tractor loader is 6' wide.  lots of concrete

 Ready for the new tee.  8'' coming in from right.  8'' at bottom of picture and 3'' at top of picture.

 New tee ready to be lowered in hole

New tee installed.

Course update

     We have been very busy on the golf course past few weeks.  Weather has been pretty nice for the most part in June.  Temperature were below normal but we had 8'' of rain for the month.  The heat and humidity did return for the last week of June into the first week of July.  We knew it would be back.  We did not have to hand water greens until June 30th.  that might be the latest I have ever had to start hand watering greens.  Last year we were hand watering the first week of May.  That was  the earliest I started hand watering greens .
     With the heat the fairways are taking off.  The new sod we laid in the fairways and tees is rooting.  We have been busy spraying the Bermuda grass contamination in our fairways, tees and green surrounds.  You will notice the white grass around the green and in the collars.  That is Bermuda grass that has encroached in our surrounds, collars and greens that is hurt by herbicide application.  I am using two different herbicides to treat our fairways and tee's.  The herbicides do not hurt the Zoysia grass but have negative impact on the invasive Bermuda grass.  We will treat all fairways and tee's 3 times.  The green surrounds we are using a different herbicide to take out the Bermuda grass.  It is safe enough to use on Bentgrass at lower rates.  We will spray our surrounds 5 or 6 times to take out the Bermuda.

Notice the off colored turf in the center.  Bermuda hurt by herbicide application.

The white grass is the Bermuda.  Right side of picture is the collar.  Bermuda hurt by herbicide app Bentgrass and Fescue not affected.

     If you have been out you have noticed we removed 28 stumps throughout the golf course.  Stumps are gone but we are still cleaning up the mess left behind by the stump grinder.  After we remove shavings we will add more soil level area off and seed.
     With the hot temperatures and high humidity we are on a mow and roll rotation.  We will continue this until we get a break in the weather.  You might have noticed a big hole in 10 fairway.  We have a major mainline leak.  This is a 8'' mainline coming directly from the pump station.  I had to order ductile steel joints to get this repaired.  We will be working on this next Monday.
     Happy 4th from your Golf Course Maintenance Staff.  Be safe.

Course Update

   We have been busy lately sodding fairways.  We have sodded # 2, #7, #9, #12, #13 and #17 fairways.  The main culprit of our Zoysia decline or death is too much moisture this past winter and spring.  Zoysia does not like to be overly wet. Since last October we have received 42'' of rain, snow or ice.  The same time period the year before we only received 28.11'' of moisture.  Our average rainfall is around 44'' a year. Zoysia grass does not go completely dormant in the winter.  It has live tissue above the ground just under the brown leaves.  This is why in wet winters and springs you can  have decline or death. We still have lot of small areas that need fixing throughout our fairways.  We will continue fixing these areas for the next few weeks.

 Water sitting in fairway.

 Removing dead sod #12 fairway.

 Laying new Zoysia sod #12.

     We have also been busy solid tining our greens.  With the wet conditions we do not want our root zone in our greens getting too wet.  Solid tining help our greens breath and root system dry out.  We use needle tines that punch a small 1/4'' hole.  After we roll and mow you can hardly see the holes.  This is one of the most important cultural practices we will do during the hot summer months.  Solid tining will be done at least once per month through August.

 ProCore punching holes.

Notice no cores just holes.

Driving Range

Driving Range tee is now open.   Please use Linear method to practice.  It will heal in half the time.

Rain

     Rain has been the norm lately.  Since October of 2018 I have recorded 33'' of moisture on the golf course.  8'' was recorded in April alone.  The golf course is extremely wet.  If you have played you have seen some Zoysia struggling to green up or fill in.  We have some dead Zoysia in our fairways.  Most of it is in areas that stay wet longer.  We will have to do some sodding in some fairways and a few tee's.  This is not isolated to FCCC.  Courses all over the state are experiencing the same problem.  We are struggling trying to get projects done and just mowing the golf course. Rough might get little hairy at times until we can get out and cut.  We will try to keep course open as much as possible.  In the case it is just too wet course will be closed for the safety of members and the golf course.  When course is open please stay on the cart path.  Driving your cart around a cart can cause damage.  Please only take 2 carts per foursome.  We have some groups that take 3 or 4 carts per foursome.  If you drive around your partners that is double the damage.  Below is some damage from too much moisture.

Low area front of 2 green

                                                               Forward tee #13 dead.                                                                            

Dr. Miller from University of Missouri posted this article last week talking about the lack of Zoysia Green up.  We are not alone.

Waiting for Zoysia Greenup: Panic or Patience?

 

Conspicuous Zoysia Issues

1. The first symptoms of large patch evident late last week.
2. Concerns of zoysia winter kill abound in the region.

Several reports in the last week have expressed extreme concern over the lack of zoysia greenup, and the potential for large amounts of winterkill on some golf courses and home lawns. As mentioned previously, the 2019 winter was the wettest since 1984-85, and the 5th wettest on record. Low lying areas, those in shade and on northern facing slopes are the most impacted presumably due to prolonged ice buildup and anoxic conditions. Some of these areas have "the smell of death" associated with sulfur and methane production of anaerobic bacteria. Perhaps not as important (!), we have also observed our first hint of large patch infection at the research farm on untreated plots.

Although some minor attrition of 'Meyer' zoysiagrass has occurred in low lying areas since 2010, for the most part the variety has endured many a hard Missouri winter. The polar vortex of 2013-14 severely impacted much of our warm-season NTEP trial (https://turfpath.missouri.edu/reports/2014/update05_08_14.cfm), but 'Meyer' was one of the few varieties that persisted.

There is still time for zoysiagrass greenup and recovery, and most of the reports are from mid-Missouri and St. Louis where wet soils still predominate. These wet soils are colder soils, (compare St. Louis and Kansas City in the Threshold Charts) since soils with water-filled pore space hold temperature much more tightly than air. In some instances, perhaps a little time and dry down will let zoysia recuperate.

Since this is uncharted territory for us, we are conducting a quick field experiment to investigate methods of recovery, or at least assess if the stand is dead.

Current suggestions include:

• An application of darker topdressing sand, or a pigment, to warm areas more quickly and allow for a better gauge of winterkill severity.
• Rake, drag, or conduct a very, very shallow verticut to break up the tight layer of interweaved brown stolons and allow for further soil warming.
• If winterkill is feared at your facility or lawn, pot and place a sample indoors by a window to warmup and hopefully greenup. Give it 7-10 days to perk up prior to making the call for replacement.

Green Perimeters Sodded

     We had enough dry time to get 3 more green perimeters sodded last week.  Holes 8, 15 and 17 were sodded with Turf Type Tall Fescue (TTTF).  I would like to thank my staff for working there butts off.  We need to finish before Thursday night because forecast was calling  for rain.  We ended up not getting hardly any rain.  We stripped 9 feet around each green.  All old sod had to be removed by hand.  We need 650 yds of sod to get these 3 greens completed.  The sod from Keeven Brothers was wetter than normal.  It made it harder to get sod into place.  We used 16-30 yard Big rolls and 170 yards of smaller slabs.  I would like to get holes 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, and 16 done before summer.  Hopefully we will get more dry time to get these holes completed.

 Cutting out old sod.

 Some of the old sod had to be removed by shovels

 This sod could be removed in slabs.

 # 15 cleaned ready for sod

 My staff pulling big roll sod into place

 The use of garden rakes helps pull sod in place

# 15 completed