Course Update

The last couple weeks have kept the agronomy team very busy.  Like most years, we start to layoff our seasonal staff in early fall and that is timed with the budget and need for routine maintenance.  This year it happened a little earlier to accommodate budget reductions, and ironically our September and October weather was warmer than years past.  This lead to more regular irrigation and continued top growth of the turf, while our mowing frequency decreased due to less staff.  We had about a 2-3 week period where we just could not keep up with the turf.

Cutting a lot of grass in fairways

Fall Flush:
I call this our fall flush, the same type of growth pattern we have in the spring, but this fall it was much more growth and lasted much longer than in previous falls.

Look at the difference on the right where the rough is mowed and un-mowed

We mowed fairways and rough as much as we could, and it still felt like we were always bailing hay. We have now gotten through that and came back to a more normal growth pattern.

Frost
Historical data shows our first frost is always around Oct 10 and by now we have had 5-7 frost events with one of them being a hard killing frost.  It is now Oct 23 and we still have not had our first frost, furthermore, our night time temperatures have been staying in the upper 40's and low 50's.  The turf still looks like summer conditions and greenness has not changed at all.  Some of the Poa is starting to discolor a little, but for the most part the course is as green as summer.

BTA grubs:
The fairway spots that were injured by the black turfgrass ataenius in Sept have fully recovered and are now in good health heading into the winter months. Previous blog - fall grubs

Annual meeting / planning
Reminder - our clubs annual meeting is this evening at 7PM at the clubhouse.  The last two weeks have led to an extra degree of planning for our department.  As budgets have been worked and reviewed for the last 2 months, along with long range planning, and structuring ideas for the complete operation. Please attend so we can include your thoughts and feedback.