June......so far

     The month of June, 16 days in the books, has been extremely wet.  We are currently at 6.58" of rain and we still have 14 days left in the month.  Rain is beneficial for the golf course but only in moderation.  In our world on the golf course, we don't have many happy mediums it seems.  We are always fighting to stay perfectly balanced.

     We had a successful member guest tournament for June 7th and 8th despite the fact that 2.5" of rain fell during the Friday into Saturday morning.  We did our best to provide the membership and guests with the best playing conditions that we could possible provide given the conditions.  We did however stress the putting greens out just a little to far trying to provide a quicker and smoother putting surface.  For the week leading up to the tournament we had basically mowed the greens 5 times in 2 days and lowered heights from .125" to .115"(1/8" to about 7/64"). This may not seem like a big difference but when you are cutting bentgrass and poa annua this low to begin with it becomes stressful on the plant to keep going lower.  With the fact of lowering mowing heights and increasing the frequency of mowing, we had stressed the turf enough to where we had active disease on the greens called anthracnose during and now after the tournament.  You may not notice the disease but it is there and if it is left untreated it has the potential to be damaging.  However, with our fertilizer applications and some fungicide it is now in check and slowly going away.  One benefit of the disease is it primarily attacks the poa annua which is an undesirable grass in our greens.  The areas that were affected are now filling in nicely with bentgrass which we like.

Area of anthracnose on the 12th green a week ago

      Also we anticipated the possibility of having a big rain event for the member guest weekend and kept the greens as dry as possible not only to have firm playing conditions but to have the ability to accept as much water as possible for when we did receive the rain.  In addition to watching future weather patterns and keeping the greens dry, we have been applying a new wetting agent called Revolution to the greens.  This product will ensure that the moisture we do have from rain or applied by the irrigation system will uniformly distribute itself throughout the entire soil profile and the soils that use to repel water will now have an ability to retain it now.  These soils that repel water is very similar to having wax on your car, the water beads up and rolls off, the same happens in the soil.  In short we have the ability to have a greater holding capacity in the soil profile now.  On the Friday of the member guest tournament we had received an inch of rain in the matter of 1 hour and the greens were still playable without standing water.  This is a win/win for the turf and the play-ability of the golf course for the membership/guests.

     We appreciate the understanding and following of the cart path only rules that seem to have been in place every day for this month.  The cart path only rules will help ensure that we can provide everyone the best playing conditions possible throughout the season.  We hope that this weather pattern changes soon and we can go back to 90 degree rule for the carts for your golfing pleasure.

Results of Aerification

This past Spring we aerified the putting greens very aggressively. We had several reasons why we chose to do this

Our timing of aerification was much sooner then we would have liked to go this season, however, golfing events in April and the availability of the aerifiers that we had rented dictated the timing. If you recall we had skipped an aerification in the Fall of 2012 because of the complements that we had received on how good the quality of the playing surface was and with all the play we were receiving we wanted to give the best conditions possible before play had slowed down for the winter months.

However by skipping that aerification that meant we were behind with our cultural practices and needed to play catch up. That's why we chose to have bigger holes on a tighter spacing.  That guaranteed us decent removal of organic matter and to be able to make many holes for roots to drive down into the soil profile and to be the healthiest that they could be.  

Today while changing cups on the greens I came across this as we were putting the plug back into the old cupping location. 

#1 green - 5.5" roots broken off when the plug was removed

This shows you the benefits of what and why we did what we did with regards to aerification. Aerification on the playing surfaces throughout the golf course for us is very much like a marathon runner. You just don't wake up one morning and decide you a going to go run 26.2 miles, let alone break any records doing so.  A marathon runner trains, and train and trains to be able to make that distance run.  The same applies for us with regards to making the turfgrass on our playing surfaces the best they can be.  We are essentially training the turfgrass when we aerify. We are providing the roots of the turfgrass the ability to grow, have increases oxygen, soil pore space and ready to make their own "marathon run" through the summer months.  The longer the roots the better the plants can handle the stresses that we will put them through with low mowing heights, hot temperatures, increased foot traffic, and ball marks.

  Seeing roots such as this in the picture puts a smile on our face. This is the fruits of our labor that no one else but us has the opportunity to see on a regular basis. These roots are the foundation to our product. Without them, we do not have a great putting surface. 

Green Surround Irrigation Upgrade

We are in the process of adding irrigation heads to our green surrounds throughout the golf course. Most of our green surrounds do not have seperate irrigation heads that will only water the rough areas or green surrounds around the greens in addition to having irrigation heads that are intended irrigate only the greens.  This is important because the amount of water required for bentgrass/poa annua greens is different from that of bluegrass/ryegrass roughs are.  

Most newer irrigation systems on golf courses have what we call "in's and out's" for irrigation heads around the putting green complexes. The "in's" are to primarily water the putting surface where as the "out's" only water the green surrounds. We have now added "out's" that will only water the green surround rough in a 180 to 240 degree angles away from the putting surface. This will allow us to better micro manage the amount of water that each area is receiving when it is needed. 

Our old way of watering the green surround areas was very "primitive" so to say and not the most efficient way to water but it worked as best as it could.  The way we had to water was to manually use a quick coupler key with an impact sprinkler head on the top. With only four of these available to use at one time it would take us a considerable amount of time to effectively water the green surrounds. With the new heads being installed we have more up to date technology that will provide better water distribution to the green surrounds which will in turn allow us to provide much better turf quality around the greens. We will also have the ability to water more green surrounds at one time. 

The new irrigation heads we are installing will not be connected to the automatic irrigation system like the rest of our irrigation heads are at this time. We will have the ability to pull electric wires to these heads at a later time so they can be connected into the automated system.  But for the time being this is a step in the right direction to provide better playing conditions and turf quality. As we install these new irrigation heads around the greens, please be patient and bear with us as we have the ground disturbed and are working very close to the putting surface. We are trying our best to minimize the impacts of our work to the membership and the guests.

Below are some pictures of the old and new irrigation as referenced above.

Adding the new irrigation head to the existing piping

Install almost complete

Green surround irrigation installed and watering on #1 green

Old quick coupler with impact head used for watering the green surrounds

GenNext Complete A&B 4th application

We have made our 4th and final trial application of the GenNext Complete A&B to the two acres of putting greens this past Thursday April 9th.  We are currently at 1.05# N/m applied to the "GenNext sprayed" greens and to the "non GenNext" greens that were given a liquid 7-0-0 ammonium sulfate.  At this point in time and in the past couple of weeks we have noticed any difference in color between the greens.  Growth has been the same also.  We had originally seen some differences with new growth in the silvery thread moss spots we have on some of our greens but looking at the areas today they all seem to be the same in and outside of the check plot areas.  On April 29th we had sent out a tissue sample to Tournament Turf Laboratories as part of our greens testing program.  We were not able to get a sample out prior to making the GenNext applications to the greens but we did compare two greens that had three applications made and two greens with the 7-0-0 ammonium sulfate applied.  Greens 2 and 6 had the GenNext Complete A&B and greens 11 and 13 had the 7-0-0.  At the time of the tissue sampling .925# N/m had been applied to all of the greens.  Here are the results from the tissue samples.

Key Findings: Tissue Analysis Results/Greens:  2, 6, 11, & 13

MAJOR NUTRIENTS:

NITROGEN, N:                     SLIGHTLY LOW (2, 6, 11, 13)

PHOSPHORUS, P                 ADEQUATE (6, 13), SLIGHTLY LOW (2, 11)

POTASSIUM, K:                   SLIGHTLY LOW (6), LOW (2, 11, 13)

MACRONUTRIENTS:

CALCIUM, Ca:                      ADEQUATE (2, 11, 13), SLIGHTLY LOW (6)

MAGNESIUM, Mg:              ADEQUATE (2, 11, 14), SLIGHTLY LOW (6)

SULFUR, S                            ADEQUATE (2, 6, 11, 13)

MICRONUTRIENTS:

BORON, B:                            SLIGHTLY LOW (2, 11, 13), LOW (6)

COPPER, Cu:                         ADEQUATE (2, 6, 11, 13)

ZINC, Zn:                               ADEQUATE (2, 6, 11, 13)

MANGANESE, Mn:              ADEQUATE (2, 6, 11, 13)

IRON, Fe:                              ADEQUATE (2, 11, 13), SLIGHTLY LOW (6)

SODIUM, Na:                        ACCEPTABLE LOW LEVEL (2, 6, 11, 13)

Moss areas on 2 green

3 Green--Small box area is the check plot area

3 Green--Small box area is the check plot area

7 Green looking at the check plot area to the right of the picture

7 Green up-close on the check plot area from center of picture to the right, bentgrass looks the same in  and out of check plot area

GenNext Observations Week 5

We are 5 weeks since our initial application of the GenNext Complete A&B. Since the last update we haven't noticed any more progressions. What we have noticed is that the "GenNext sprayed" greens had less poa seed heads on them. In the last week or so we have had a big emergence of poa seed heads on those greens. We had initially applied the seed head suppression application of Embark at 35 oz./A. We decided since we had the emergence of some seed heads and that the greens have been slow to heal from aerification with the weather and the growth regulator we would forgo the second Embark application

The "GenNext sprayed" greens have a great look with color and growth compared to the check plot areas and the "non GenNext sprayed" greens. The overall color is not as green as what we had seen for the first four weeks but they are still a bit greener than the "non GenNext sprayed" greens which are at the same with fertility. Aerification holes are a little more closed up on the "GenNext sprayed" areas compared to "non "GenNext sprayed" areas at this point in time. We will be applying our third application this Wednesday at the 8 oz./m rate.

6th green with GenNext Complete A&B applied

Check plot area on the 6th green

Sod work

The right side of three fairway that had run all the way to the green is now gone. The bentgrass fairway has been removed and used in other areas of the golf course in such areas as tees, and fairways. This has saved us a considerable amount of money to be able to use what we have removed. Bentgrass sod is triple the cost of what the tall fescue/bluegrass mix that we have replaced it with on the 3rd hole.

We have chosen to remove the small section of fairway because of the difficulty to keep this small section alive in stressful times of the year and with the increases cart traffic this area has seen. The old fairway on the left had to be removed for the same reason years ago and it was now time to make some continuity between the two sections on the hole.

Course Projects

Right now we have a few course projects that are currently being worked on and completed.

We are in the process of removing the section of fairway cut that runs around both sides of the fairway bunker on the third hole. We are taking the existing bentgrass turf and re sodding the blue/gold tee on 10, the gold tee on 17, two thin areas on the fifth fairway and some areas on the fourth tee and seventh tee. The two areas on three will then be re sodded with bluegrass and made rough height. We have also made the area between the green side bunker and the fairway bunker on three from rough cut to a fairway cut now.

We are also starting to incorporate more ornamental and native grasses called love grass and little bluestem throughout the golf course. These grasses will add an aesthetically pleasing contrast with the brown color of the grasses from the green fine turf areas of the golf course and will help with reducing water and labor to keep these areas as fine cut turf. This is also going to help decrease the amount of acreage of rough that needs to be mowed. With our sandy soil and severe slopes these grasses will do great. Most of these areas that are being done are out of play areas that will not affect the playability of the golf course but will enhance the aesthetics. One area that is completed is the gold tee bank of the third hole.

Love grass and bluestem plantings at 3 gold tee

Installing fairway cut sod between bunkers on 3

Area on 3 fairway to be made in to rough cut

Sod work completed on 3

GenNext Observations

Looking at some of the greens a little more closely this morning where we have applied GenNext Complete A & B, I have made a few observations.

So far the "GenNext greens" have had a total of .8# N/m applied to them and the check plots are at .3# N/m. This is much more nitrogen then we are use to applying at this point in the growing season. We are typically around .3#-.5# N/m at this point. With that said, we have noticed the greens where we have had a moss infestation, such as holes #2, #3, the moss in the check plot areas seems to have a green color and only has a few bentgrass/poa plants emerging through the moss. Where as the rest of the green surface where the GenNext has been applied is showing more bentgrass plants especially emerging through the moss. The moss also seems to be "suppressed" and not as active as the check plots. This can be attributed to the increased level of nitrogen that the greens have received that we tend not to apply at this point.

The second observation is the rooting depth in both the check plot areas and GenNext applied areas appear to be the same at about a 3-4" depth.

The third observation made is the clipping yield from the "GenNext greens" to the "non-GenNext greens" is approximately the same. The "non-GenNext" greens have a total of .675# N/m applied to them of ammonium sulfate. With .8# N/m applied in one month you would expect a dark green color on the greens which we have seen. However the growth seems to be more lateral then upright which is desired to help encourage more bentgrass into the putting surface.

Our last observation made is with the warmer temperatures we have had we have had poa annua seed heads emerge on the putting surfaces. Even though we made a seed head suppression application 3 weeks ago, our timing has seemed to be off, which is disappointing. However, the "GenNext greens" have significantly less seed heads then the "non-GenNext" greens. The only difference in applications besides amount of nitrogen is the applications of GenNext Complete A & B.

To also note the soil temperatures in the greens as of today is 60 degrees at a 2" depth and 58 degrees at a 4" depth.

Moss in the GenNext Complete A & B area on #3 green

Moss within the check plot on #3 green

2nd Application of GenNext Complete A & B

Today the second application of GenNext Complete A & B was applied to the two acres of greens. This was the second application at 16 oz./m of both A & B. We have made the application three days ahead of the every two week schedule because of the upcoming weather forecast that has rain for Friday and increased wind speeds. Second application observations to follow in a couple days.

GenNext Complete A & B Update

A few pictures of the greens with GenNext Complete A & B 11 days after initial application. (Initial application was applied at 16 oz./m of each Complete A & Complete B for a total of .25# N/m)

GenNext Complete A & B 1st Week Results

Here are some pictures of our check plot areas on the greens that have had the GenNext Complete A & B fertilizer. The only noticeable difference is that we have seen is a color difference. Greens with GenNext have a great green color. The check plot areas the bentgrass has a dormant look and the poa annua is a lime green color. Aerification hole healing between the two nines with GenNext and without is not significantly different at this point in time. The Embark application for the poa annua seed head suppression is one obviously reason for the slow healing.

Aerification

Our aerification of the playing surfaces throughout the golf course is "officially done". This past Monday and Tuesday we have finished aerifying the tees and driving range tee. Our fairways and greens were completed during the first two weeks of March.

Our healing process has been slow so far on our putting surfaces and there have been a couple of factors that are delaying that healing process. First, the soil temperatures in the greens did not reached 50 degrees until Monday. Temperatures for optimal root growth is 50-65 degrees and optimal leaf growth occurs between 60-75 degrees. Unlike at this time last year we have not had the same temperatures to give us a warm up. This has been our typical March. The second reason for the slow healing is from an application of a plant growth regulator that we have applied to the putting surfaces to inhibit the poa annua from producing seed heads and creating a bumpy and less desirable putting surface. Unfortunately the timing of when the putting surfaces needed to be treated fell right at the same time we were aerifying greens. We could have delayed the aerification but we felt this would provide less impacts to play.

With the warmer weather in the forecast we should a dramatic increase in the healing process. Before July 1, we will be solid time aerify the putting surfaces to help better prepare the putting greens for the most stressful period of the summer for us, July and August. This will be less intrusive and playable immediately after completing. So please bear with us and remember what we are doing now will allow is to provide the best playing conditions possible. You can't win the World Series without a great Spring Training.

GenNext Complete A & B Observations

Here are some pictures of what we have seen so far with the GenNext Complete A & B application. It has only been 48 hours since the application but we have seen some green up which is expected.

2 green in a moss infested area 24 hours after application.

2 green again in the same area 48 hours after application.

9 green 48 hours after application.

GenNext Complete A and B

Today we made our first application of GenNext Complete A & B fertilizer to the front nine greens. We have high hopes for this new fertilizer and we will be making three more applications over the next 6 weeks. Since aerifying greens 3 weeks ago, we have been slow to heal up. Not only have soil temperatures been too cold still for optimum growth, 40 degrees two weeks ago, we have also had to make a poa annua seed head suppression application to help ensure a smooth putting surface for the weeks and month to come. The seed head suppression spray actually slows the growth of the turf and its ability to allow the aerification holes to heal. It's a double edge sword, but will help us give the best possible playing conditions that we can offer in the weeks and months to come.

We have marked areas on the greens that we have applied the GenNext Complete A & B to where the putting surface was covered with a 2 foot X 2 foot piece of plywood so we can better monitor turf quality. At the time of application soil temperatures at a 2" depth were 48 degrees, air temperature was approximately 45 drgrees and the greens were mowed the day before at .135". GenNext Complete A & Complete B was applied at 16 oz./m each and applied at 75 GPA with Turbo TeeJet Duo nozzles. .3# N/m of 12-3-12 granular ammonium sulfate was applied to all greens and Embark was applied at 35 oz./A for poa annua seed head suppression two weeks prior to the GenNext application. Check back to follow our results as we will be posting pictures of what we are seeing for results.

9 Green before application

9 Green before application

7 Green right after application

7 Green after application with 6 Green in the background

6 Green after application looking at a thin area of poa annua that had anthracnose last season

Greens Aerification

With having the access to rent two Toro Procore 648 aerifiers we have had the ability to just about aerify all of our putting greens. We had the ability to aerify 1 acre of the putting green surfaces in about 2.5 hours. With these new aerifiers we have used, we are able to choose what our hole spacing was going to be. To ensure that we have a healthy putting green surface, the goal is to affect 20% of the putting green surface per year. We used the tightest spacing possible, 1.5" X 2" with a 5/8" diameter tine. We were able to effectively affect 15.34% of the surface area today. There are a lot of holes that need a lot of sand!! The clean up process will continue on tomorrow so we can beat the impending weather that we have coming at us. We fully expect about two weeks to be completely recovered from aerification and having better putting green surfaces then we did this past season.

GenNext Complete A & B rates and expectations

We have been given our rates to be used in our GenNext Complete A & B fertilizer. The date of our first application will be dependent on the weather. Here are the rates that we will be using on 2 acres of greens which will equate to approximately 11 greens (practice green, 1-9, 10, 17).

March 29 ~ 16 oz./m application of A & B (11 gallons of each)
April 12 ~ 16 oz./m application of A & B (11 gallons of each)
April 24 ~ 8 oz./m application of A & B (5.5 gallons of each)
May 8 ~ 8 oz./m application of A & B (5.5 gallons of each)

After our initial application we are told that we should see any turf voids or thin turf fill in quickly. After the second application we should see the poa annua stop out competing the bentgrass, creating a very smooth putting surface the entire day. After the third application we will use our soil moisture meter to start monitoring moisture levels as the product has some features that allow molecules of water to adhere to the roots meaning we could start to reduce irrigation needs. We will be marking a spot on each green that will not receive Complete A & B to monitor and compare for poa annua reduction as the process is very gradual and hard to detect day to day. We will be taking pictures of the spots and we will be told how to treat the photo electronically to identify the poa annua. We do have a moss problem on some of our greens and hope that we can see a reduction in the moss with the Complete A & B products along with other cultural and chemical controls.

We are told the 8 oz. per 1000 sq. ft. rate is the rate that moves poa annua out at about a 15 to 20% rate on a yearly basis. If we reduce the rate you get the effects of the even putting turf and enhanced coloration but your poa reduction is minimized.

We are excited to try this product out and hope to see the results that are being advertised by GenNext.

GenNext BioTech fertilizer trials with Fisher & Son

In cooperation with GenNext Biotech and Fisher & Son Company, we are going to "trial" a new fertilizer product called Complete A & B on the greens. The Complete product is a two part formula mixed together in equal amounts to provide complete plant nutrition. We are hoping with the results we have seen from our greens fertilizer program this past season, we will be able to add to it and use this product as our "PED" to keep pushing the quality of the putting green surface.

GenNext Complete “A” - A combination of special purpose enzymes, hormones, plant, microbial and biological organics reacted with and combined with nutrient elements. This combination provides the primary basic requirements to build the first phases of plant immunity and defense, improves health, vitality, color, plant density, and assists in supplying keep ingredients to encourage the grass to efficiently use all absorbed materials and water to develop the essential end products. This is designed to be used with GenNext Complete “B”.

GenNext Complete “B” – Contains Nitrogen and Potash primarily in the protein, enzymatic forms to provide sufficient nitrogen to support just enough nitrogen to insure slow leaf growth and to provide the plant the necessary balances of N and K required. GenNext Complete B contains key ingredients to supply certain soil microorganism’s energy sources to encourage multiplication and to adjust to turf grass requirements. A natural organic nutrient enzyme hormone complex derived from processed highly reactive specialized natural plant manure’s, plant extracts and plant composts combined (balanced) with minerals. These critically essential enzymes and nutrients are readily absorbed and available immediately for use by the plants. This is designed to be used with GenNext Complete “A”.

Course Condition Update February 6th

Just about all the snow has disappeared on the golf course with just a few spots left in some bunkers and in shaded areas in the rough.  Just about all tees, fairways and greens are completely clear.