Storm Clean-Up

Received 2.75 inches of rain yesterday from the mid-day storm plus another in the late afternoon.

Focusing on debris removal from greens and fairways along with pushing sand back into place in greenside bunkers.

Picture is from hole #7.

Weekly Schedule for August 8-14, 2011

Weather and unforeseen conditions can/will change the schedule.

Hope to have a portion of the 4 inch well transfer pipe that is on hole #2 trenched and buried by Tuesday. Continue with the weed spraying. Apply liquid fertilizer to fairways.

Driving Range Tee

In the front right corner of the upper driving range tee we are doing a small experiment to see if we can get bentgrass seed to not only germinate but grow during the heat of summer. When a course is first built and seeded there is a period between construction and opening that we call a "grow-in". Basically it's getting the turf to the point where it can be played upon. The initial part of a grow-in is keeping the seedbed moist. So we are watering every 2 hours for just about 5 minutes until the turf is mature enough that we can back off and start watering deep and infrequently to improve root growth. So far we are seeing some germination within 7 days of seeding. Usually bentgrass takes 10-14 to germinate under ideal conditions.

Recovery

We are having some good weather finally for the turf to recover. Only 0.4" of an inch of rain was received last night but it has helped. The cooler temperatures as well make a big difference. During this stretch of good weather we are working on fairways to help give them a boost. Aerification, topdressing and fertilization is being used for this. Our first spot was on fairway #12.

Weekly Schedule for August 1-7, 2011

Weather and unforeseen conditions can/will change the schedule.

Our big emphasis this week will be spraying weeds and handwatering fairways and tees. The forecast shows some cooling later in the week with a greater chance of rain starting next week. For now we will hope for any rain we can get!

Golf Course Superintendents Association of America Press Release

This is a good summary of what is happening this summer:

GCSAA Press Release

Weekly Schedule for July 25-31, 2011

Weather and unforeseen conditions can/will change the schedule.

This past week a sample of the collars was taken to the laboratory for a soil physical analysis. In approximately three weeks we will have the results and a more comprehensive plan for the collars can be made and shared.

On Monday we will star-tine the greens. This causes very little disruption to the green and will be almost unnoticeable after mowing Tuesday morning.

On Monday the DryJect machine is coming back for the collars. This is described in an earlier post: DryJect