I strongly believe in the fact that cultural controls are the most important part in maintaining a solid golf course. without these or at least not paying attention to what the turf is doing we are only setting ourselves up for much worse issues down the road. As everyone knows and what the USGA, PGA and from just general field observations there are many golf course not just in our area but across the midwest in pretty bad shape. We have managed to stay in pretty good shape for the entire summer hopefully because of the cultural control programs we have in place. Needle tining, slicing, topdressing, careful watering practices all are very important the the health of the turf. that being said we did loose some turf mainly in the fairways and not bentgrass but the poa trivails. I am actually not too worried about this in that each and every year we have some sort of issue with this type of grass. There really is no good control for it so at the end of the day letting mother nature take it out is probalby a good thing.
We used a coring tine on the aerifier then drop seeded in to the holes left behind. It is very likely that the poa trivails will start to recover in these spots but at least we will have some new bentgrass plants to hopefully set to take over down the road.
We also have been lightly verticutting the greens the last 2 Mondays. This process helps remove some grain, and open up a channel to allow for some additional drying of the surface. Looking very closely you can see that the verticutting leaves a small channel and also severs the turf plants. this is a good thing in that it forces the turf to produce a new tiller and encourages more upright growth. Once mowed the green is back in fine shape.
We also sliced all the fairways this week. The process takes only 2 days. Produces a 4.5 inch deep slit and once mowed the fairway is relatively smooth. We have not been able to accomplish this all year. Slicing the fairways in overly saturated soil conditions will actually glaze over the soil on each side of the channel, really providing no benefit. This week with the great weather was a great opportunity to open up some airways and allow for free water movement in the soil profile.
Lastly, I am sure you have noticed the new plantings behind 13 green. I transplanted some true warm season grasses from 18 hill which include big blue stem, Indian grass and switch grass. As well as some perennial flowers. I plan on contiuing some additional planting on the backside of the hill also
The newly planted fescue has all been sprayed once again and we started to mow the undesirable grasses also this week. I think you can start to see the that the stand is looking good and by next spring I would expect to see a nice seed head
Thank you and I hope that you will be able to enjoy this great weather out on the course.
Neil