Aerification update!

 I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving!

The week before Thanksgiving we aerified fairways and DryJected greens on both courses. 

The DryJecting process went very well. The process involves dried topdressing sand being injected into the greens via a channel created by pressurized water. The hole created is minimal but the amount of sand injected is impressive. As evidenced by the picture below. 

    "DryJect uses a high-speed, water-based injection system to blast aeration holes through the root zone to fracture the soil. The patented vacuum technology simultaneously fills holes to the surface with high volumes of sand or amendment. This means you can relieve compaction, increase water infiltration, reach the root zone with oxygen and amend your soil with high volumes of material all at the same time. Plus DryJect leaves the surface smooth and playable."

Sand channel on the West course PG ... 

The fairway aerification was a bit of a struggle. In the four days leading up to Monday, we received 2.5 inches of rain. To make matters worse, the weather ( drizzle, cloudy, cold ) on Tuesday was very difficult for aerfication purposes and that put us behind for the week. To make matters worse again, we had long frost delays on Wednesday and Thursday and when all was said and done, we only got through 12 holes on the West course. The same company is scheduled to come back and finish the last 7 holes in the coming weeks. The weather will be the deciding factor as to whether that happens. Lets hope it does!

We are still mowing grass out there! As I'm typing this we are mowing the West greens. Despite some cold nights, we've had enough daytime warmth to keep things growing a bit and we will mow as long as that stays the case. 

Hopefully the next blog post is highlighting some successfully repaired irrigation leaks! 

Topdressing ...

“The putting greens were perfect, why did the superintendent need to apply sand to them?”

We are taking advantage of todays rainy afternoon to put another application of sand topdressing on the putting greens and immediate surrounds. This afternoon starts a wet and damp period that looks to last until Friday mid day. The rain will rinse the topdressing into the turf with minimal disruption and traffic on the surfaces.

If you are playing out here this afternoon and saw us start this process, you may have asked yourself the bolded question above. Topdressing greens has a number of benefits. It creates a smoother, firmer, and faster putting surface while also protecting the plant. 

You can read more about sand topdressing and the benefits at the links below. 

USGA: The Benefits Of Sand Topdressing

USGA: Topdressing And Quality Greens Go Together Like Peas And Carrots

USGA: Light And Frequent Topdressing Programs

Planting seed and killing weeds!

Wow! Missed a month and a half. Time flies when you are having fun! Or something like that ...

A lot has gone on in that time frame though. 

First and maybe most importantly, the tees on both courses plus the range tees, short game area, and Academy were all aerified. No doubt this will prove beneficial moving forward.

Tees aerified ... 

We seeded the East tees shortly after they were aerified, which has gone well. The seed took really well and has filled in on schedule despite the lack of rain. There are a few in which we didn't get great germination and we will be redoing them as we do the West.

Seed germinated and filling in ... 

The driving range tees, short game area, and Academy area have all been seeded also. We should see that seed germinate this afternoon or tomorrow. Should be perfectly timed before whatever rain we get the next two days. We seeded #13 West blue tee and #8 West red tee last week also. So we should also see germination on those two today or tomorrow as well. We started seeding the rest of the West tees yesterday and will hopefully finish them this week plus do some of the still thin East tees again as mentioned above.

Back in July we started adding a herbicide to our fairway sprays that would slowly control the clover in the fairways and tees. #3 and #4 West fairways in particular had numerous sizeable patches, but there were patches present on most fairways and some tees. Well the herbicide did its job well and we have all but eliminated the clover in the short grass areas. In this case, things have to look bad before they will look better. We will put some seed into these areas as time allows. 

Clover "disappearing" ... 

Similarly, we made some herbicide applications to the short grass and rough in spots to start controlling the sedges that have invaded. While the clover was more of an issue in the fairways, the sedges are more concentrated on tee boxes. As we seed the tees these areas will fill in, as seen in the last picture of the set.

Sedges being controlled, seed popping through ... 

We've also tried to keep our promise of cleaner and more frequent bunker maintenance. The playability and appearance of the bunkers really depends on the amount of rain we get. Through dry periods, the bunkers look and play like bunkers. After rain events, they look, well, like something else. 

Bunkers #2 West ... 

Well this is getting long. Hopefully we have more interesting things like this to talk about moving forward. Looks like rain the next few days and with all the seed on the ground it will be beneficial. Unfortunately it will come at the cost of the bunkers and rough mowing time. It can never be easy! 

Member-Guest ...

What a great weekend. Other than the 1.25 inches of rain that washed out and flooded the bunkers Thursday night, everything went as well as I could have hoped. I think the course played and presented well. I also think Eric, Rob, Vaughn, Lynn, and the team put on a great event. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Venting greens ...

We vented, or aerified with small solid tines, the West course greens the last two days. We finish this process off with a roll of the greens and the surface disruption is minimal. These tiny holes allow the greens to "breath". Gasses get expelled through the open holes which allows fresh air in. The holes also allow the greens to dry out better but will also allow water into the soil profile easier once the need for irrigation returns. 

Here is a USGA video on the process ... 

USGA Green Section Webcast: Venting Aeration - A Benefit To Putting Greens

Member Guest next week. We've already started prepping. Now would be a perfect time for it not to rain again until next weekend. 

A picture seven months in the making and protecting the greens ...

Look back if you will to this post made on December 23rd of 2019 about the removal of trees around the 18th green on the West course.

Now fast forward to just a few days ago. Here is the result of our work in December ...

We started here ... 

Used an application to map the sun ... 

Removed the trees ... 

And ended here ... 

Think that helped the green? I do. 

Have you seen the weather forecast? I sure have. This will probably be our most difficult stretch of the summer. Mid-July, the greens are already stressed, and now we will add some real heat and humidity with the possibility of some downpours. All of that equals tough conditions for the turf. 

If you played this morning ( Friday the 17th ) you may have seen us spraying and than watering the greens. Yes, we were watering after spraying despite the fact it was drizzling. We did this because we sprayed a product that needs somewhere between 1/10th to 1/8th of an inch of water to properly protect the plants. We want it to protect from the roots up, so we have to irrigate it into the roots. I apologize for it being done on a Friday, but after seeing the forecast worsen for the next few days, I felt it was best to get it down. We also had a soil surfactant in the tank that will allow us to use less water and more evenly distribute the water we do use in the next couple weeks. 

Along the same lines, we will adjust our mowing schedule while the heat is intense. Tomorrow ( Saturday ) we will cut greens and do a clean up pass. Sunday we will roll. Monday we will skip both cutting and rolling to give the greens a break and we will also spray them again. Tuesday we will cut with a clean up pass and base what we do for the rest of the week on the weather. 

We put a lot of time into bunkers this week. After 4.5 inches of rain last weekend they needed some serious work. They should be much better for this weekend. 

Stay cool!

Range Tees ...

Despite the extremely dry and mostly hot weather, we got good germination from the seed we sowed into the range tees. Most of it seemed to survive the period of little to no irrigation also.

Two photos from areas that were still bare enough to see the lines of germinated seed ...