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!