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! 

The winter that never was ...

I cannot remember a winter like this one. Will we pay for it over the next month and a half? I hope not.

I think we have made the most of the weather here in the agronomy department. We raked green side traps on both courses on Friday. Saturday we raked green sides and changed cups on both courses. Monday we raked all the traps and changed cups on both courses. Tuesday we put the cherry on top by cutting tees on both courses! The main purpose behind that mow was to clean up the divots and debris that had accumulated on the tees but we also ended up dumping the buckets three or four times per course. So it was a worthwhile.

The 10 day forecast looks like more of the same. So hopefully you can get out and enjoy it!

#10 West tee post mow ...

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope everyone had a good holiday.

We are having some really nice winter golf weather. Tuesday we mowed collars, approaches, and greens on the West course and put down our snow mold application.