Greens Aerification

Monday the 14th we aerified, topdressed, broomed and blew the sand into the holes. This is very important for the health of the greens. Aerification helps with water infiltration, getting oxygen to the roots and removing thatch. Topdressing helps smooth the putting surface and fill the holes to provide the best putting surface possible. Additional topdressing will be needed to touch up areas and fill in holes that were missed. The course was closed the entire day making this process extremely easy and helping us complete it all in one day. 

Erosion Control

 The cart paths leading up to numbers 8 and 10 tees are very steep and have loose dunes sand along the edges. During the heavy rains we have experienced the last few days the sand has started to wash down the hill. Tuesday night and into Wednesday we were expecting to receive a large amount of rain in a short time frame. We placed these long hay filled tubes along the edges of the cart path to reduce the flow of water to certain areas of the dunes. We first needed to dig a small channel so the tube could fit in there snug against the cart path, than we pounded stakes behind the tube to hold it all into place. After that we did some touching up of the sand behind the tube.

Fairy Ring

Throughout the golf course there is alot of fairy rings on the fairways. There are 3 types of fairy rings, Type 1 causes the soil to be hydrophobic, Type 2 causes the turf to grow quicker and is dark green in appearance, Type 3 causes mushrooms to appear and all are in arcs or circles. Fairy Rings occur from decaying organic matter from a number of sources such as old stumps or decaying tree roots. First we aerified the whole surface in 2 directions than applied a fungicide and wetting agent in a drench application

Bunkers

Last week we backpacked sprayed the bunker faces with round up to eliminate the fescue and weed intrusion. We spray the weeds because it is more efficient than having the crew spend countless hours hand pulling the weeds, another reason is to eliminate the risk of pulling the bunker liner up with the weeds. I was especially careful with this application because any product reaching the turf would cause yellowing and eventually death. I also had to be very careful not to get any on my boots because than anywhere I walked would leave a foot printing affect.

Red Thread

Red Thread is a Nitrogen Deficient Turf grass Disease. The best way to get Red Thread out of the turf is to apply nitrogen versus costly fungicide applications.

Spot Spray Fairways

Over the last couple days we have been spot spraying the fairways with speedzone, a herbicide used to control broadleaf weeds. Spot spraying may take a little more time but you are putting down chemicals only where you need it and not wasting any where it is not needed

Seeding

The 10 day weather forecast calls for rain everyday so the last 2 days we have been seeding approaches and green surrounds with 50 percent Ryegrass and 50 percent Fescue mix. We also seeded some shaded tee box's with straight Ryegrass. Ryegrass is quick to germinate and the Fescue is slower to germinate so we are hoping the Ryegrass grows quick and fills in bare spots and when the Fescue germinates it will take over. The sun is starting to get higher and stronger, some of our tee box's are fairly shaded and didn't do so well through the winter. With this Ryegrass seeding those areas will fill in and be ready for the upcoming season.