Course Notes, 11/21/17

Our 2017 course winterization is now in full stride.  The pesky leaves are finally falling at a faster clip and each day brings us one day closer to having that time consuming process finished for the year. 

The irrigation system was successfully blown out and put to bed last week.  This process utilizes an industrial sized air compressor that fill the pipes with a high volume air flow at a lower pressure to flush out as much water from all piping and rotors as possible.  This process takes us about 2.5 days to complete and is one that I am happy to finish with no major issues!

Plant protectants have been applied to greens, tees, and the practice facility to help guard against snow mold infection.  Fairways and green surrounds will receive their application later this week or early next week, depending on the weather conditions. 

Finally, this coming Monday we will be applying our final topdressing to the putting surfaces.  This last application is a much heavier application than normal, and is not normally broomed in.  This is to maximize the protection and insulation the sand provides the Poa annua that is predominant on the greens at Elcona.  The above picture of 1 green shows what last year's application looked like after a rain event washed the sand further into the canopy.  The close up view with a microscope shows how the sand tightly protects the crowns of the plant from winter desiccation and cold temperatures. 

In our industry, we liken this final heavy application to putting a blanket on the greens and "tucking them in for the winter".  Bob Vavrek of the USGA has written a great article further explaining this application that you can access here. 

I hope that everyone has a very Happy Thanksgiving, as we all have so much to be thankful for.  Be safe in your holiday travels, and I hope to see you out at Elcona soon! 

Ryan

November Course Notes and Happenings

While the leaf colors exceeded beauty and expectations, they are dropping as fast as we can mulch them.  As I sit in my office on this frosty morning, I estimate we are about 70% done with this quite time consuming process.  The contrast in colors this time of year between turf and leaves are spectacular though!  Here's hoping that we have a few days this month for all of you to come out and enjoy the golf course.

The Vertidrain process on #9

Our contractor was out on November 2nd to Vertidrain our greens.  This process is a solid tine aerification that reaches a depth of 8-9 inches.  The benefits of this late season process is to create channels for new root growth and late fall/early spring drainage.  This process also further smoothed the greens from October's core aerification, and we applied an additional 20 tons of sand as well to fill in any open areas.

Map of Indiana's Drought status, as of 10/27/15

A few of you were asking why the October core aerification was slow to heal this year.  There are a few reasons why our greens are slower to heal perhaps compared to other courses in the area, no matter the frequency we roll them or amount of fertilizer or water we apply.  One major reason is that the turf composition on the greens are 80-90% Poa annua, whose growth habit is non-spreading, unlike Creeping Bentgrass, which is the main turf composition on tees and fairways here. The other major factor is the schedule of timing of this necessary practice.  October soil temperatures are 15-20 degrees on average below those of September, and we lose over 90 minutes of daylight over the course of the month.  The 2 mornings where the low was below freezing really slowed down both the metabolism and growth rate of the plant!  Finally, October was quite the dry month here, where most of Elkhart County is considered now in a moderate drought situation.  Rain water is 10x more acidic than our irrigation water, and that increased acidity makes additional nutrients available to the plant in the soil. Hopefully this provides a bit of agronomic reasoning behind the healing process and its timing.  If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me either at 574-295-6374 or by email at ryan@elconacc.com.  I am more than happy to discuss anything golf course related!

We do have a couple of small projects that the staff and I have or will be starting this month, along with beginning our annual tree work.  The first project involved the cart path entry at 10 green.  All of you have noticed the poor turf conditions that exist at the beginning of that path due to the heavy traffic from both maintenance equipment and golf carts.  What we did here is utilize old rubber matting from Chef Casey's kitchen and placed it at the main entry point, then covered it with a soil/seed mixture.  The thought here is to allow the mat to absorb the brunt of the weight associated with the traffic and allow for increased turf density and vigor there.  The seed will germinate next year and we will use this area as an experiment that hopefully will allow us to learn how to better manage these areas.

Mats placed in hole below turf surface

Poor turf and soil removed at entry point

Seed/soil mix filled on top for new turf

We also are building a new forward tee on the right side of #2, just before the beginning of the fairway.  The new tee will measure 320 yards to the center of the green.  The white tees will then move permanently where the forward tees are located currently.  I will have more information and pictures on this project later this month.



Ryan