Rub of the Green: drought

Friday, September 29, 2017

Course Notes, 9/29/17

September has been a topsy turvy month weather wise. Quite cool the first 2 weeks, and July-like temperatures the 2nd half of the month. The heat that has been in our area has produced some high growth rates in our greens, tees, and fairways. We have verticut all of these areas within the last 10 days to reduce the amount of leaf matter and applied additional growth regulator, which will return these surfaces to more normal playing conditions. Besides cutting lateral growing turf and removing thatch, the verticut helps stand the turf up for regular mowers to achieve a more consistent playing surface.

2 fairway after a verticut

6 fairway after verticut and regular mowing

One constant throughout the month has been the lack of rainfall. Only on September 19th did we have a rain event producing greater than .10” of rainfall. Needless to say, it is dry out there, which you can see by what the grass looks in some non-irrigated areas. Here’s to October bringing our area a good soaking rain!

Of course, that good soaking rain needs to avoid our aerification dates! Tees were aerified on September 6th, and as you can see to the left, we removed a lot of thatch from them! With the warm temperatures we had, the holes have already healed in for the most part. Greens will be aerified on October 5th (Front 9 and the Large practice green) and 6th (Back 9 and Small practice green) using a 3/8” tine. The cores that we bring up with these tines will be

verticut and the soil will be re-introduced into the profile. The greens will then be topped off with new sand to finish filling the holes. Fairways will be aerified the week of October 9th, using a solid ½” tine. There will be no plugs being brought up, which is how we aerify them in the spring. While a short term inconvenience to ball roll and playability, aerification is the foundation of proper soil and turf health and a critical component of any agronomic program. Thank you for your patience and understanding during this busy and quite necessary time in our maintenance schedule!

Some other notes….

7 fairway bunker on a Saturday morning

The picture on the right is unfortunately becoming more evident each morning when we are raking bunkers. This was noticed on a Saturday morning, footprints right next to a bunker rake. Out of respect for your fellow members, please rake the bunkers after you hit out of them. Thank you for your cooperation.

Jorge raking 11 greenside bunker

Our staff has been expanding the Aussie ring around the bunkers in a further attempt to increase playability. For the most part we have received positive feedback with this short term change in maintenance, and will be utilizing the plate compactor method I wrote about here in all greenside bunkers next spring.

Skunk digging has been evident is some green surrounds, like this area to the left of 3 green. The skunks are looking for a tasty meal of grubs. These areas are repaired, seeded, and a curative insecticide is applied to take care of any white grubs that are present. These areas are considered ground under repair, and the digging usually subsides later this month.

In an attempt to better warn anyone on the course of potential weather, we have moved the weather siren from the halfway house to behind 12 black tee. This siren was having issues receiving its signal from the clubhouse. It is also solar powered, which was a fun afternoon electrical engineering project (a great use of my Purdue education!)

The milkweed we left in the native areas was well utilized by the visiting Monarch butterflies last month. Milkweed is the sole host plant for the monarch caterpillar and is critical for completing their life cycle. Creating additional habitats such as this one right of 16 fairway is a simple way we can help these pollinating insects thrive and contribute to the benefit of our local ecosystem.

If you have any questions, please contact me at ryan@elconacc.com. Thank you, and I’ll see you out on the golf course!

Ryan

Monday, July 2, 2012

Drought Update and Cart Traffic

Mother Nature continues to be very greedy when it comes to sharing her rain with us. While other parts of the country have more rain than they could ever want, we have just been classified as being in an extreme drought situation. You probably won’t believe me when you read this, but I would much rather deal with this scenario as opposed to the heat, humidity and rainfall that we had last year. As of today, July 2nd, our last significant rainfall occurred on June 1st when we received a whopping 1/2" of rain.

In extreme patterns like this, thanks to the irrigation system, we can be in control of where the irrigation water is placed, how much goes out, and when it is applied. Based on your comments to me, the general consensus is that this year’s course conditioning has been well received. With that being said, we will continue to “ride the wave” that we are on until the weather dictates that we need to adjust our management practices.

This is the perfect time to remind everyone about some simple, but often overlooked courtesies when it comes to driving golf carts. When turf is stressed from heat and lack of moisture it is critical that carts stay out of these areas. By driving through stressed areas, the turf is subjected to greater stresses that could cause significant injury or even death. Other courtesies that should be followed all year and especially during stressful periods include: parking to close to the greens, driving more carts than necessary in a group (ex: 5 carts for a 5-some), driving carts where they don’t belong (next to greens/tees and in the tall grass areas), carelessly applying the brakes too hard and leaving skid marks etc. All of these should be common sense, but you would be amazed at how many times I witness all of these on a daily basis.