Reel to Reel

  Here are my favorite shots from the month.     

  Perfect weather helped the aerification process run extremely efficient.  Blue skies, wind and low humidity helped the sand dry quickly and made it much easier to work into the aerification holes.  A big thanks to my staff for their tremendous effort.   50 tons of sand being delivered soil reliever aerifying at 11" depth   pro core aerifying at 4" depth  Aerification Arithmetic 3.68 billion aerification holes created 65 tons of sand used to fill the holes 225+ man hours For futher explanation, here are the numbers from a few greens: #16 Green - 5124 ft2 - 246 million holes created - 5 tons of sand used (10,000 lbs) #11 Green - 5777 ft2 - 277 million holes created - 5 tons of sand used (10,000 lbs) #2 Green - 3255 ft2 - 156 million holes created - 3 tons of sand used (6,000 lbs)

Greens Aerification and Topdressing Scheduled for 8/27 - 8/29  Following upon last year's success, we will be aerifying and topdressing greens Monday thru Wednesday after the Club Championship.    The aerification holes will recover extremely fast and the greens will be in great shape for all of the fall events. 

It was an extremely productive day today.  We crossed many to-do's off the list: tree company removed a few hazardous limbs sprayed greens and tees with nutrients and fungicides cut tees, rough, stepcuts and driving range verticut and cut fairways applied soil amendments to fairways fine tuned aerification and topdressing process on short range greens  hollow chestnut limb behind #16 tee dead wood removal off willows on #11 soil amendment being applied to #7 fairway

The weather is finally cooperating, we have seen some nice recovery in the fairways the last few days.  Cool temperatures at night and adequate rainfall has helped the new seed germinate.  The existing bentgrass is also benefiting from the favorable weather as it continues to aggressively creep into the thinner areas. We continue to be proactive in these areas.  Various combinations of slicing, verticutting and aerifying have proved to be successful in promoting bentgrass growth.  The fairways should be dry enough by the end of the week to verticut which will help initiate some additional recovery.

I thought it would be interesting to show the rooting difference between bentgrass and poa.  I pulled two plugs from #17 fairway, one bentgrass plant and one poa annua plant.  The picture below speaks volumes.  The bentgrass roots extend to 6" vs the poa plants 1.5".  This is one reason the bentgrass is more heat tolerant and requires less water.  The longer root system is able to pull water from deeper in the soil profile creating firmer playing surfaces on top. The extremely short roots of the poa annua does not provide much water retention.  Subtle changes in the weather like increased wind or a drop in humidity can rapidly dry out the plants.  The root system can not retain enough water to make it through a high evapotranspiration day.  This is why we have to syringe or spin the irrigation heads in the afternoon.  As we increase our bentgrass population, the fairways will become stronger and stronger requir...

It is another hot day today, followed by a couple more this weekend.  As of now, we will be limiting our maintenance practices on the greens to ensure they make it through these 90 degree days.  Green speeds may be slower due to the humidity and the thickness of the turf leaf blade.  We will most likely be syringing the plants in the afternoons to cool them off.  With the air temperature in the 90's, the temperature of the turf canopy will be between 100 to 115 degrees. I wanted to update you on the status of the fairways.  We have sliced all of the fairways to provide some additional air to the root zone.  We are applying small amounts of nutrients and fungicide on a weekly basis to nurture the plants through the difficult weather.  We continue to spin the irrigation heads throughout the day to cool the plants off.  Although the fairways have seen a slight improvement, significant...