September 22, 2012

Area thinned by Grey Leaf Spot

These past few weeks we have been challenged in some fairway areas and rough with a turf disease known as grey leaf spot. Grey leaf spot, or gls, primarily attacks perennial ryegrasses and tall fescue. It’s a fast acting disease, spreads easily, and can blight large areas of turf in a matter of a day or two from the time of the first infection. It is a hard disease to detect, and is usually only recognized after the damage is done. The telltale sign that it is or was gls are dead rye grass leaves twisted up like a corkscrew.

During the three days that we aerated the fairways the weather was wet with rains and showers from the remnants of hurricane Issac. The turf never got too many chances to dry out, and I believe that was when we were initially affected. I think that the drag matts and blowers helped spread the disease. Underneath the plugs and debris on the fairways, and with all the activity of the staff running in all directions focusing not on just the fairway aeration, but also on the greens aeration, we never saw it. Only when we got the fairways cleaned up, we were able to see areas that had collapsed.

As soon as we realized that the damage was from gls, we applied a fungicide to stop it from spreading any further, and began overseeding damaged areas. Our primary overseeding of the fairway areas was with bentgrass and the roughs with a low cut bluegrass. For the most part, we are finishing this up, but I am sure that there will be areas that don’t fully take and will need to be seeded again – nothing is perfect which is why God gave us patience.

Not that I am whining, but it is very challenging to seed and germinate grass seed in the best of conditions, but under the heavy cart traffic, which is the norm here, it will be an even harder thing to do. Spouts just dont take traffic!

So I am asking that everyone as much as possible avoid driving in any areas that look thin, and don’t knock down the ropes where we have put them up to protect some of the sensitive areas. Please drive carefully and don’t “nascar” the cart or go doing doughnuts or sharp turning when looking for your ball. Those tires are a gun to the head of sprouts and young plants. The other option, which I am ready to take if I don’t see cooperation, is to close off areas and entire holes to carts, making it cartpath only. I can put the seed in the ground, but after that, its up to all of us to get a good stand of turf.

September 12, 2012

After aeration, many members have told me that I must be happy that things are slowing down and that I can rest...

I wish!

Things never slow down! Although we were able to finish the green and fairway aeration last week, we still have a lot to do! Our season and work is far from over!

This week we began tee aeration, which we do “in play”, by doing just a few tee boxes at a time on each hole, shifting the tee markers back and forth to the ones we are not working on. This method is time and labor consuming, and will take us a few weeks to finish.

Meanwhile, we are re-seeding the rough areas that thinned over the summer, and overseeding the fairways with bentgrass. This too, is a slow, but methodical process. When we finish these we will overseed the tees with bentgrass.

We are beginning “spring” weed control! Most weeds are best controlled in the fall so that they won’t become a problem the next coming spring. We have started to spray out broadleaf weeds such as clover, plantains, dandelion, etc. We have to coordinate these sprays with seeding because the herbicide will also kill any new seedlings that we have seeded, so there is a lot of planning and timing involved.

When these are finished it will be time to aerate the rough – a job that takes 3-4 weeks.

We also plan to lime the fairways to bring our calcuim levels up.  This will be a huge job – spreading about 3 tons lime per acre!

Slow down? Rest? We probably won’t until there is six inches of snow on the ground!

September 1, 2012

It’s that time of the year again! Over the next few weeks, we will begin performing our necessary cultural practices to help maintain healthy turf. We started this week by verti-cutting the new Bermuda grass tees on #7, and the driving range tee.

Adan operating the Graden

Cleaning up the clippings

Justin breaking up the clippings

Max mowing the tee

Isidro topdressing the tee

Justin dragging in the sand

Ryan applying fertilizer

Watering in the sand and fertilizer

Next week, on September 4th and 5th, we will aerate the greens and fairways.

August 17, 2012

Now you see it....

...now you don't!

Its amazing what three little goats can do in a few days!

August 10, 2012

In this weeks paper the weather made the front page – 2012 is so far the warmest/ hottest year on record. I don’t know if the weather service reports humidity records, but if I had my guess, it also has to be the most humid. At least it seems that way.

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We made the 2012 Best of the Press – GOLD for the BEST golf course! This is the third year in a row that we have been given the BEST golf course award!

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Soon we will be installing laser reflectors on the top of the pins. These will work with any laser rangefinder. If you are not currently using a rangefinder, Mark Parson can help find the right one for you!

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The goats are doing what we thought they would do – eating up the lower brush and the poison ivy on the left wood side of the 7^th hole. They made the news in Philadelphia this week – WIP94 sports radio personalities Angelo Cataldi and Al Morganti talked about our goats on Wednesday morning and then again, with Steve Coates, on the  Friday morning show.

Maybe next year we will use chickens for insect control !!!!! Just kidding.....

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Ryan, our intern, has been bringing in his dog, Claude, for goose control. Claude has chased away the flock that hung out in and around the pond on 18, and is keeping tabs on the rest of the course for any “newbies” that might land.

July 19, 2012

Today I took my camera to do a diary of what was going on all at one morning moment - all pics were taken between 6:30 and 7:30 am - as fast as I could get around! There is always a lot going on at once!

topdressing the greens

spraying a wetting agent, fertilizer, and fungicides for soil pathogens

watering in the topdressing and spray

mowing the driving range tee

stringing the weed eater

trimming the driving range walk

setting up the course

watering some of the few thousand new shrubs

still cleaning up from the storm

"dabbing" weeds

venting the greens

mowing tees

the tree service removing hangers left from the storm

Francis contemplating her next weed to eat

That's a glimpse of one hour! and to be honest, I didn't get pics of mowing the fairways, the mechanic repairing a mower, or of the person mowing rough...

July 7, 2012

Last Saturday morning, June 30, I learned what a “Derecho” is. I had never heard of it before, but now I will never forget what it is and what it can do.

Downed tees, snapped limbs, etc – the tree damage was just as bad and in some ways worse than what we suffered with Hurricane Irene. It will take weeks to clean up whats on the ground, and months to clear hangers and twisted limbs high up in the trees. We will also need to remove some of the damaged trees as there is nothing much left of them worth saving.

We were without power to the shop and clubhouse Friday night through Saturday – for the shop it meant we couldn’t charge out work carts, had to siphon fuel for the equipment, made equipment repairs by flashlight, and were unable to charge our phones for communication, and so on. It made things hard, but not impossible – we began the clean up and have kept going ever since.

Worse was the loss of power to the pump house. For three days – Saturday (91 degrees f), Sunday ( 98 degrees f), and Monday (90 degrees f) we were without water for the turf.  We attached city water to the irrigation system with garden hoses which gave us enough water to lightly hit hot spots on the greens, but nothing else. We were able to procure a generator that would have given us power to at least one of our three pumps, but as the electricians were hooking it up, Atlantic Electric asked us to stop so that they could get the line repaired. At 4pm Monday power was re-established to the pump house and we immediately began irrigation cycles.

We brought in extra help for the cleanup, bought another chainsaw– and haven't stopped

And as you know, weather wise its been a tough week, with temperatures in the mid to high 90's– This is today’s headline from Weather.com:

Torrid Heat: 4000 Record Highs and Counting

Records will continue to be smashed in the Midwest and East as triple-digit heat continues.

Todays forecast is for 101 degrees f  with a very real possibility of severe storms tonight.