The numbers are in for this years baby blue birds. This year 54 blue birds were fledged up 12 from last year and right in the middle for the last 6 years. We also counted the wrens and tree swallows that made their home in the houses, 15 wrens and 28 swallows were fledged. I am fortunate to work with Gary Graud, retired researcher from the UW, in that he has developed and is known across the midwest for his blue bird boxes. The blue birds research that is done here helps out everyone trying to find the best possible location for houses and the best house for the blue birds.
A quick golf course update, As I have stated, we will not be core aerating the greens this year but we will be continuing to needle tine the greens until late fall. Monday the 14 we will needle tine the greens and then apply a light topdressing application after each green is aerated. The tees will be core aerated this fall, but I will only be completing the Maroons and White tees. We will start this process as soon as possible.
You may have noticed some areas on the golf course that we are starting our demo program on finding the best possible way to seed the new fescue. I have applied round up to 15 tee area, 8 green, behind 11 green and the woods just left of the path on 14. All of these areas are now dead and we will be mowing and then seeding these areas very soon.
I also applied some round up over the top of some very thick stands of fescue. What I am trying to see here is if it is possible to kill just the tops and some turf and not all. This was done down in the bottom near the woods on 14. What I see now is promising and these areas will be mowed to see what type of results we would expect.
We have also completed the and now much larger drop area on 17. I really think this turned out very good and the larger area will be much better. If you look very closely at the before and after pictures we will be able to see most of the old drop tee, we left this part intentionally in order to reopen the tee as soon as possible. You may also see a section of bentgrass to the left that looks a little out of place to the left of the white line. We run out of good sod when we were completing the work and this section will be removed and replaced with some good quality sod. We are also going to look at #4 and move the drop zone off the white tee and build a new drop area in an undetermined location at this time. We will be starting this project in the next few weeks.
BEFORE
AFTER
I would also like to add that now is a great time to apply a little fertilizer to your yard. One thing to remember is that you should not apply any product to stressed turf. I feel that without any rain your yard is stressed if it is not being irrigated and I would recommend that you give your yard a good soaking wait a few days, apply your fertilizer then water in the fertilizer well. I would expect that you will see some good result this way, and not alleviating some stress from your yard before making an application could be very detrimental to your turf.
Thank you Neil