Reel to Reel

Here are my favorite shots of the month.  

  As the weather cools and plant growth slows down, we will be shifting our maintenance efforts towards more projects.    Projects this fall include:  - new white forward tee on #12   - new white forward tee on #18 - cart path renovations on #6 tee and #7 green - root prune selective trees that are competing with turf - improve fairway drainage on #7

The golf course provides a great habitat for many animals.  Several red fox have been seen this year prowling about.  Red fox resemble small slender dogs weighing between 8-12 pounds.  The red fox is primarily nocturnal, meaning they are most active at night.  They are opportunistic and will eat almost anything.  Their typical diet includes fruits, berries, insects, frogs, birds, and rodents. One of our fox had some fun recently, as it did some digging on the east side of #3 green bank.  A mole trail was moving through the destroyed area, so I believe it was in search of a little dinner.  I hope the fox was successful.  Looking at the mess he made, it sure looks like he had to work hard to capture the mole. Tomorrow morning we will clean up and resod the area.  It is marked as ground under repair.

Despite a 2 hour frost delay yesterday morning, the day ended up being extremely productive once we were able to get onto the course.   Monday's Accomplishments: - sliced greens with the PlanetAir - topdressed greens with light amount of sand - sprayed greens with soil amendments - aerified #16 and #18 fairways   Looking Ahead (9/25-9/28): - spray greens with nutrient and fungicide - aerify #9 thru #14 fairways - weekly maintenance (cutting, rolling, line trimming)  

We started aerifying the Par 3 fairways today.  Aerification of the remaining fairways will continue for the next couple of weeks.  Our aerification program this fall will be aggressive, but extremely clean and playable.  We will use solid tines at depths of 3" and 10".  In a difficult year like the one we've experienced, the more holes and slices that can be created, the better off the turf will be.   The first wave of aerification will occur with the ProCore aerifiers at a depth of 3".  The second round of aerification will occur with the Soil Reliever at a depth of 10" in mid-October.     The billions of holes created will: - increase water infiltration - improve firmness and playability - increase air porosity - increase rooting    Ernesto and Carlos aerifying #8 fairway

I'm extremely pleased with the recovery the greens have made from last week's aerification.  As you can see from the picture below, there are hardly any visible holes.  The greens have healed in remarkably fast and are rolling smooth.  #12 green 7 days after aerification This morning, we aerified tees.  Everything went well. #1 tee after aerification this morning Another item on the agenda today was slicing fairways.  This was good to complete since we have had great success with bentgrass creeping into and coming up through the slices.  #1 fairway being sliced with Aerway  A new methodology we tried last week, is proving to be successful in promoting bentgrass germination.  In the picture below you can see all of the new seedlings growing on #11 fairway.  We will be going around this week continuing our overseeding efforts in weak turf areas on fairways. #11 fairway new bentgrass seedlings...