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.