Rolling after Aerification

I like to roll greens after we aerate them.  It help smooth putting surface and move sand down into green profile.  We will roll multiple times before we put the cutting units on and mow for the first time Monday.

Native area

We were finally able to burn the native area between 4 and 5.  We have been trying to do this for 2 months.  Too wet, too windy, too much work on other parts of the course.  Burning rejuvenates the prairie by removing excess leaf litter and duff allowing more plants to flower, produce seed and grow taller.  It also increases available nutrients through indirect stimulation of microbial activity in the soil and releasing nutrients from the ash.  Burning exposes the darkened soil and allows sunlight to warm the soil quicker and extend the growing season for warm season native plants.  The fire also suppresses many weeds and non native invasive cool season grass. When we burn the native we always back burn.  You want the fire to move against the wind not with the wind.

Green Aerification Completed

It has been a busy 2 day on the course.  We completed our Greens aerification on Tuesday.  Staff worked very hard.  I would like to say it went smooth  but we had our problems.  Monday  our Topdresser decided it was not ready for aerification.  Here we are ready to apply sand to our greens with no way to put it out.  Rob was trying to troubleshoot the problem but after 2 hours something had to be done.  We converted our fertilizer spreader into a topdresser.  It worked very well but we could not haul as much sand with it so it took a lot more trips per green.  It looked like we would be working up until dark but Rob saved the day and got our broken topdresser fixed around 5:00 p.m.  That was a relief.  The second day ran very smooth and we finished back nine greens by 3:30 p.m.  Here are a few pictures of our aerification process.

We verticut greens first

Aerator running with our core collector

Dumping cores at end of green

 Crew picking up cores. 

 

Rob and Karen running blowers to help open up all aerification holes.   Rob made attachment to go on back pack blower to help open holes.

 

Fertilizer spreader used to topdress.



 

Our regular topdresser working.

 Nick drags sand into holes

Dan applying fertilizer.  Turn water on we are done

Purple Martins

You can't help but here our Purple Martin's singing.  They are here.  I think they love the new location we put the houses.

Happy Easter

What a beautiful sunrise.  Happy Easter

They Need Time to get it done

     This is an article posted in this weeks USGA Green Section under Course Care. It Talks about giving the maintenance crew time to get  course setup done before play begins.  How golfer interference in the morning can cause chain reaction of events that can slow down the progress of the staff getting its work done.  The biggest thing to take out of the article is to know when the course is open and do not to jump the gun on starting times.  It also talks about the person who might want to start on hole 4 or 7 to get a head of groups starting on hole 1, they think it is not a big deal but could end up costing maintenance crew valuable time getting jobs and projects completed.  We start our day at sun up.  This time of the year that is 7 a.m. in the summer it is 5:30 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. Our course opens at 8:00 a.m. currently and in the golfing season it is 7:00 a.m.  If the starting times are observed this gives the maintenance staff 1 to 1 1/2 hour head start.  The chances are slim you would even see a mower or maintenance staff worker well into your round.  Hit the link below to take you to the article.

http://www.usga.org/course-care/forethegolfer/they-need-time-to-get-it-done.html

Verticutting Greens

     We are verticutting Greens today.  Verticutting helps eliminate grain.  Grain develops when bentgrass grows.  The bentgrass likes to grow horizontally.   It lays flat on the putting surface. Verticutting cuts these horizontal leaves and lifts them out.  What happens next is the new leaf grows upright, that will give you a much better ball roll.  You will have less leaf that the ball comes in contact with.  Our verticutting is agressive this time of year.  In the warm months we are not as agressive taking about 1/2 as much material.

Dan Verticutting Putting Green.  He fills baskets up about every 3 passes.

 

 

We fill Truckster up after 3 greens.