We continued to see the same forecast daily and looking into the future more of the same fairly hot and continued very dry. We did manage to get through the 100's last week but there are some areas really starting to get stressed which is understandable. I continue to devote a lot of man hours hand watering doing our best to at least lessen the amount of turf going dormant. Once again, we continue to battle the poa trivials in the fairways along with compacted soil. I am sure that you have seen a couple of roller bases out in the fairways which are supplementing these dry/hard spots instead of running a big irrigation head. Needless to say we continue to do our best to keep the golf course in great shape we are moving to not watering rough areas that get no irrigation since its almost a losing battle these areas will come back to life whenever it does rain. The range is also an area that I am only watering once or twice per week. The soil on the range is so bad that even in a good year it is hard to manage and trying to keep the 10 acres out there lush and green just seems like we are wasting water right now.
Last week before the heat set in we were able to topdressing the greens and approaches as well as solid tine all the greens. I feel that this couple with our hand watering program really was the key to the greens preforming great all week. One problem that I am starting to see is that the approaches and a lesser extent the greens are starting to get a little puffy. This is from the warm days and just not be able to put down heavy top dressing applications in this heat. It is just like walking on the beach on hot days, your feet cant handle it and the turf is the same way. A really good way to set the greens back by putting down a heavy sand application. I will top dress the greens and approaches again tomorrow but once again a fairly light rate. Normally we are topdressing the greens every 2 weeks at fairly moderate rates of sand this year we are going weekly at much lighter rates just to attempt to keep up with the growth. This is what is leading to some puffy areas, whenever the weather breaks we will start verticutting aand topdressing to get this under control. In the mean time we continue to use growth regulators to slow down the growth but the plant still producing organinc matter in this heat that will need to be taken care of.
In between all of this watering we have been able to get a few bunkers edged. The greens bunkers are almost done and as time allows we will start working on the fairway bunkers.
Have a great week and I hope to see you soon
Last week before the heat set in we were able to topdressing the greens and approaches as well as solid tine all the greens. I feel that this couple with our hand watering program really was the key to the greens preforming great all week. One problem that I am starting to see is that the approaches and a lesser extent the greens are starting to get a little puffy. This is from the warm days and just not be able to put down heavy top dressing applications in this heat. It is just like walking on the beach on hot days, your feet cant handle it and the turf is the same way. A really good way to set the greens back by putting down a heavy sand application. I will top dress the greens and approaches again tomorrow but once again a fairly light rate. Normally we are topdressing the greens every 2 weeks at fairly moderate rates of sand this year we are going weekly at much lighter rates just to attempt to keep up with the growth. This is what is leading to some puffy areas, whenever the weather breaks we will start verticutting aand topdressing to get this under control. In the mean time we continue to use growth regulators to slow down the growth but the plant still producing organinc matter in this heat that will need to be taken care of.
In between all of this watering we have been able to get a few bunkers edged. The greens bunkers are almost done and as time allows we will start working on the fairway bunkers.
Have a great week and I hope to see you soon