Fall Aerification

Last week, as many of you know, we completed our fall aerification.  This fall we pulled out a 1/2in x 5in core on a 2.5in spacing.  Our process went like it usually does with one exception.  This was the first time that we had a greens roller around aerification time and it made a huge difference!  After the fertilizer and sand was put down, we used our roller to smooth the surface before we drug the sand it.  This process allowed us to get all the holes filled with sand and we didn't have to come back a couple of days later by hand to fill in what we missed.  As far as fertility went we put down an 5-4-5 complete fertilizer which is going to give us about .40# of N, .30#P and .40#K.  Next we put down some Gypsum to help with any compaction and sodium issues that we might have.  Lastly we put down a poly coated 0-0-50 to help with our low Potassium levels in our greens.  The poly coat is a type of slow release that will get us 180 days of slow release Potassium.  The greens are healing in nicely and were mowed for the first time on Monday.  We will continue to mow and roll them this week and I expect them to be rolling great by the weekend.  As always, thank you for your patience while we perform this important process.

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Greens Spiking

Yesterday we took advantage of another closed Monday and spiked greens.  Spiking greens is just a less aggressive way to aerify.  The spikes go about 1 to 1.5 inches into the ground.  Although we aren't getting 4 to 5 inches down like we would with our procore, we still get great benefits out of this. Anytime you can open up the canopy and relieve some compaction is a good thing.  After we spiked we sprayed a product called Penecal which is a wetting agent combined with calcium that will help flush any high sodium that we might have in our greens.  Behind the spray we topdressed and then watered heavily.

Here are some pictures of the spiking process

 

Insect Damage

For those of you who have been out playing in this extreme heat, you may have noticed some damage on #4 green.  Although the damage is very minimal, it is affecting the way the green plays.  The insect we have it a short-tailed cricket.  This cricket will come out late in the evening and feed on our bentgrass green.  The damage isn't coming from the feeding, it's coming from the hole they burrow into the ground. They leave a large casting on top of the canopy and when we mow or roll over it in the mornings, it looks like a larger ball mark.  We knew something was feeding and burrowing in our green but we didn't know what.  So we used an old trick that many superintendents use.  We mixed up some water and lemon joy dishwashing soap, came out early in the morning when they were still active and poured the mixture on one of the castings.  Within minutes, the soap floated a cricket up out of the hole.  After further investigating, we knew it was a short-tailed cricket.  We have ordered some insecticide and should get this problem taken care of quickly.  #4 green might play a little rough for the next week or so but should be back to normal by the end of the month.

These are the castings we find in the mornings  and a picture of the crickets.

Seeing Benefits

This past spring as you may remember we aerified our greens with a deep tine aerifier.  We knew that this process would help us throughout the year but you never really actually "see" the benefits. Last week my assistant Craig and I went out and took some profiles of a few of our greens to check root depth.  This is the time of year that our roots on our bentgrass greens really start to decline because of the extreme heat and humidity.  This picture is of a profile out of #7 Green.  One of the good parts of this picture is that fact that we still have 4 to 5 inch roots which is great for the middle of July.  But the real reason why I wanted to show this is the area where the profile breaks up but there is a straight area going down that is still together.  This is where some roots are up to 8 inches deep in what looks like a deep tine aerification hole from this spring.  That machine pulled cores out 10 inches deep and created air space for roots to grow.  You are seeing the benefits from that in this picture.  Our blog back in March explains the process of that aerification.   In the future, you can plan on seeing that deep tine process every spring!

Greens Aerification and Verticutting

On Monday this week we did our 2nd greens aerification of the year.  We were scheduling this process depending on our weather and we couldn't have asked for better.  Cloudy and a high of 72.  We went on a 3 inch spacing and pulled out 1/4inch cores about 3 to 4 inches deep.  Using our wind rower attachment on our aerifier we were able to pull all the plugs to the edge of the green and our maintenance staff picked them up and hauled them off.  Usually we verticut before we aerify but we tried something new this time and verticut after the aerification.  We were happy with the result of this process.  The verticutting helped clean up any plugs that might have been left behind.  All in all, the process went as well as it could have and by this weekend you won't even be able to tell that we did anything.  With our new greens roller that we received this week, we were able to mow greens this morning (Thursday) and they are nice and smooth already again. So come on out and play this weekend!

We also got our new equipment here this week.  We received 2 new tee mowers, 1 new fairway mower, 4 new walking greens mowers, a sandpro for bunkers and a greens roller.  With the addition of this new equipment you should see a more consistent cut around the golf course and more consistent bunkers.

Tee Aerfification and Topdressing

We just finished up our first tee aerification for the year.  It went really well with us getting 9 holes done on Monday and finished up the second 9 on Tuesday.  We used our procore  which is the same machine that we use on our greens and we pulled just about a 1/2 core.  We then used our verticutting reels on one of our tee mowers to bust up and clean the plugs on the tees.  Today we mowed them for the first time and followed that up with a heavy topdressing.  When it is all said and done, we will end up using around 50 tons of sand for all the tees.  This should help make our tee surface smoother and a little bit tighter.  

Next Monday be looking for us to start aerifiying and topdressing our collars.

Course Update

First I would like to apologize for not blogging lately.  I will try to get more consistent with my updates in the future.  If you have been on the course the last couple of weeks you have probably noticed the sodding projects that we have been doing.   These areas haven't had any grass on them since I have been here and we are finally making our way around the course to get these completed.   The first area that we finished was around #4 Green.  I will post some pictures soon of what we did there.  This past week we finished up at #8 Green.  This is going to be a common site over the next couple of months so please be patient with our maintenance staff as they try to get some more grass on the ground. 

If you have been on the course over the last couple of days you might have seen some fertilizer on our roughs.  Yesterday we put out our first fertilizer application down in our rough areas.  This was a 24-0-5 fertilizer which means it had 24% nitrogen, 0 phosphorous and 5% potassium.  This is a slow release nitrogen product which should get us about 6 to 8 weeks of continuous fertilizer in our roughs.  We went out at around 180lbs/Acre.  That will give us 1 pound of nitrogen/1000ft.  We put this out yesterday because looking at the forecast it looked like we should hopefully get some rain this weekend which will help water in the fertilizer.

We have also started a poa eradication program.  I'm sure you have all seen the yellow turf in our greens which is poa annua.  We started a program this week which over time will hopefully decrease our poa population.  We are spraying a product called Trimmit.  Trimmit is a growth regulator that will slow the growth of poa and allow the bentgrass to take over.  You won't see any poa die from this application, over time you will just see less poa.  This will be a long process.  We can only safely spray Trimmit in the spring and fall because the summer temperatures are to hot here in Oklahoma.  Hopefully in 2 to 3 years we will be able to see that this program is working for us here at SCC.

We hope that everybody is enjoying themselves out on the course this spring!

Tee and Fairway Verticutting

This past week at the golf course we decided to verticut and scalp down our tees and fairways.  This process gets out a lot of the dormant bermuda that is matted to the ground and opens up the canopy.  Opening the canopy will allow us to green up quicker, help with weed control and reduce thatch.

Verticutting in progress

Finished Tee

Green grass starting to come up in some fairways

Trial Pictures

In my last post, I talked about a herbicide trial that we were performing here at the course.  Here are some of the pictures from that trial.  These where taken just 7 days after application.

Before application

After application

No application between orange flags

Looks like it is even going to have some effect on our poa annua

Herbicide Trial

Golf course superintendents are always trying to find chemicals that work and might make your job easier at the same time.  It seems like everytime you turn around there is a new product coming out that might just do that.  A couple of weeks ago our BWI sales representative came to me and asked if I would like to take part in a trial for a new herbicide.  I agreed and he gave me a couple of acres of the product to try out and see what happens.  The product is called SureGuard.  It has pre and post emergent activity, meaning that it will prevent weeds from coming up and also kill some of the weeds that are already there. We sprayed it at a rate of 10.8oz/Acre which is right in the middle of the 8 to 12oz/Acre rate.  With a lot of the pre-emergents out there, you have to add Roundup or a 2, 4-D product to get any weeds that have already established themselves.  With this product, you might not have to do that.  We treated a couple of areas at our old driving range area between #9 and #10.  These areas have been marked with orange flags so please leave them if you see them.  We will be checking this area often, taking pictures, monitoring the weather, etc. to see what is going on and what kind of control we are getting.  I will post some pictures once the product has time to work.

Spring Pre-emergent Application

Well it's that time of year again. You may have seen some blue dye around the golf course this week which means that we have started our pre-emergent application on the golf course.  This year we will be putting down 2 different products of pre-emerge.  On our greens surrounds, tees and fairways we will be applying Ronstar. It was important to put Ronstar down around our greens because it won't translocate through the soil.  It is the safest pre-emerge to put around your greens and also one of the best.   In our roughs we will be going with a new product called Specticle. Specticle on the other hand will travel through the soil so that is why we chose to apply it to our roughs. Specticle can also be a "root pruner".   We are trying it out this year on our roughs and if it goes well we will look into doing it on our tees and fairways next year. One great selling point about Specticle is that you only have to apply it once a year. It will stay in the soil for up to 12 months so we should get some superior weed control out of  this product.  Both are very good products for weeds like goosegrass, crabgrass, poa annua, etc.  In our tank mix we are also adding Roundup, 2-4 D, and some spreader sticker.  The Roundup will kill all the poa annua and grassy weeds that we have had come up over the last couple of weeks and the 2,4-D will take care of any broadleafs we have around the course.  The spreader sticker does just what it says, helps the chemical stick to the leaf so it is absorbed quicker.  We started on Monday and we have finished the Driving Range, Tees, Fairways, Clubhouse Area and some greens surrounds before the wind forced us to stop.  We are looking to finish up next week but that will just depend on what the weather does.    

Here are a few pictures of myself and Craig getting some spraying done this week.



Controlled Burn

I had mentioned in one of my earlier post that when we got the opportunity to do some controlled burning we would.  Well, we finally have gotten that chance.   The wind has been light, giving us perfect conditions to work.  We have around 3 years of brush and debris so it is no small task. With the rain we are getting tonight, we should be able to continue burning safely for the next few days.

Burning brush in the pit that we dug out

Water cart for safety and control

Roundup Application On Collars

About 3 weeks ago I mentioned in one of my blogs that we would be doing an application of Roundup in our collars. Roundup is a great tool in the winter because it is safe to spray on our dormant bermudagrass. It also doesn't translocate in the soil, which means we can safely apply it right up next to our greens and not worry about injury to our bentgrass. We still use a drift board to cover ourselves against any drift we might get from the wind. Last Thursday the wind was light which made it a perfect day to do our application. The Roundup will take care of any weeds that we have like poa annua, clover, etc. With the help of one of my staff members, we completed this job in just under 3 hours. The sprayer we used was my personal sprayer that has covered nozzles which also helps us against any wind and drift we might get.  We made 2 passes around every green which will give us a 5 to 6 foot buffer for our Roundup and pre-emerge application next month.

One of our target weeds Poa Annua

Applicaton process with drift board in use

Finished application around #9 Green

Winter Project

On the golf course when we aren't working on equipment in the winter we are always trying to find ways to improve things around the shop.  Last year we mainly worked on cleaning the shop. It was my first winter here at SCC and we had alot of organizing to do.  This year we decided to renovate our storage area for our irrigation parts.  We were having problems with the bins not being big enough to hold everything we had, they also didn't have a back on them so we were constantly having parts fall from one level to another, making it hard to stay organized. Our new storage area has bigger bins, backs on all of them, a work bench for valve and sprinkler head repair, and 2 areas to store bigger parts, pumps, etc.  I wish I could take the credit for the design, but it was my assistant Craig that came up with that. 

Old storage area for irrigation

My assistant Craig taking a measurement

New storage for irrigation

Storage area with tool bench

Week of Jan 16-20

We have a busy week coming up here at SCC.  This coming week we will be working on an irrigation leak on #6, we are in the process of clearing some brush and cedars on #15 and if the weather allows us to we will start burning our brush pile over on #17. Last Thursday we met with the fire cheif and made sure that our process to burn was approved with him. We dug a pit so our debris would be contained and burn quicker. We are ready to go with a burn permit, we just need the wind to be below 20 mph.  If you see any smoke this week on the east side of the property, don't be alarmed. It will be my staff and I trying to get some things cleaned up.

This is the pit that we made for our burn.

Pile of brush and debris

Winter Equipment Maintenance

On a golf course the winter is a good time to do some needed repair on some of our equipment. Two weeks ago we discovered that we had a couple of hydraulic leaks on our backhoe when we were using it on the golf course.  The leaks were coming from 2 hydraulic cylinders on the back arm on the machine.  One of the cylinders runs the bucket and the other runs the left side of the arm to move it back and forth.  My assistant and I took the cylinders off the machine and took them to get them repaired.  It took OCT equipment 4 days to get them fixed and we got the backhoe going again on Monday.  Below are some before and after pictures of the leaking cylinders.

Before look of cylinder leaking

Look at cylinder after repair

Second cylinder leak before repair

Second cylinder leak after repair

My assistant Craig putting the final touches on one of our repairs