Friday, July 3, 2015

July 2, 2015



A few topics…
In May we had little rain – less than an inch – yet June brought close to 9 inches and was the wettest June since 1920, missing the record by less than a 10th of an inch. The radar shows a line of heavy rain storms bearing down on us this morning, today, June 2nd. I am concerned that this will continue to be the summer’s pattern.
Is the rain helpful? Like with anything else, excess creates problems.  With the rain, roots have shortened up due to the lack of oxygen in the soil – more or less they were suffocated back towards the surface where there is typically more air. We are seeing this on greens, tees, and fairways, and where drainage is less than adequate, decreases in rooting is more pronounced.
On the 11th green at the bottom right front corner where the soil becomes saturated and cannot drain due to  its poor construction, and the clay layer underneath, anaerobic conditions have taken over. Sulfur dioxide, a product of anaerobic respiration, has damaged the turf roots, weakening the plants to the point where anthracnose, downy mildew, and differing species of pythium have easily able to attacked  and thinned patches of poa. We have been solid tining the area and we also ran the verti-quake through this section. Pesticides do help reduce the populations of attacking fungi, but cannot overcome the wet conditions. We are continuing to do our best to remedy this situation.
 
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As you can see, the rain causes other problems for the turf and the staff. It took five of us to lift and pull this cart, buried to the axle, out of a wet area behind the 9th green. The person was taking a shortcut off the cart path that at best might have saved him 10 seconds. It ended up costing the staff 7 labor hours.


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I don’t want to rant, but we are finding and plugging out divots on greens…1 last week, 2 this week…


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