Thursday, July 26, 2012

golf course update

wow, went for almost 2 months without any rain and all of a sudden we have too much.  almost 4 inches in the last week. All of our hard work hand watering, running roller bases, timely solid tining and the use of wetting agents is paying off right now.  the golf course is in really good shape we have been able to get to this point keeping just about all the poa trivilas alive.  Now that's not to say that this wetness and high humidity may not push it too far but as of today we are sitting pretty good.  our main problem right now is the amount of grass growing.  It seems that it was waiting for this break in the drought and is growing like crazy.  nothing like natural rain to kick start everything.  We have not applied any additional nitrogen actually we have applied very little fertilizer this year.  Our growth regulator program is currently being adjusted to help lengthen the control of growth suppression we lose control during when it gets very warm the turf metabolizes  the products much faster,  we are using buckets on the fairways today because there is so much grass .  We have not been able to mow on our normal schedule because of the rains and being too wet.  We actually had to double cut the greens yesterday.  Our greens have been very good all year they are a little slower over the last few days with all the growth that is happening. I do not change the height of cut throughout the summer we actually lowered the height last week after a topdressing to help keep the growth and speed in check. I was anticipating the growth spurt but still seeing a little more then we want.  Whenever it does dry up the greens will be back to the normal speed most likely by the weekend.  We have been able to manage  speeds of at least 11.5 feet daily up until this week.   Interesting, in that I have only applied less then .6 lbs of nitrogen on the greens all year.

Next week we need to ramp up the topdressing on the greens and approaches weather permitting we will apply a fair amount of sand to help with the puffiness of the turf.  I am sure that you have also noticed the tees are very puffy this is due to the high heat and humidity over the last few weeks this August and September we will be core aerating all the tees a few times to get this in check.  The build up of organic matter this summer has been much more then I have ever seen.  I still have no plans on core aerating the greens but we will continue to topdress them to help control this organic matter accumulation

I hope that you will take advantage of the great weather this weekend and play some great golf. hope to see you soon  

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