Spring Flush - Rough

The rough is one area of the golf course that is a challenge this time of the year.  It isn’t that long, we actually are mowing everyday and have also mowed the last two weekends.  It is so dense, thick, and wide leaf blades right now.  Also, the weather has been wet and cloudy keeping the rough moist almost all day long.  This combination of damp, lush, thick, dense, and very heavy grass makes its very penal.  I have lowered the height down just a little from our summer mowing height, the reason I do not lower it more is because the grass height is a direct relation to the root depth, and we need to develop a large root mass to make it through the hot summer.  If we shave down the top, then we will shave down the root system underneath and have many more dry thin areas come July and August.  That’s why the fairways take a lot more inputs during the summer of fertilizers, chemicals, and handwatering, because the lower height is a smaller root mass.  

What is interesting, is that I feel our soils and turf in the rough are self-sustainable, we have not fertilized the rough in 3 years and look how healthy it is.  All the years of decomposing organic matter and returning the grass clippings allow the rough to feed itself.  That’s why we can’t control the density and thickness by cutting back on the fertilizer, because we have not fertilized the entire rough in 3 years.  Once we get a little warmer the rough will take on a thinner leaf blade, dry out in the canopy, and be much easier to get a club through it.

Greens Aerification Recovery

Greens have really recovered quickly from aerification.  It has only been 8 days and they are already putting smooth and true.  A combination of good weather, lots of brushing, and alternating rolling and mowing has really worked in the sand.  The rapid growth recovery has to be due to the fertilizer application 5 days before aerification, instead of the day after aerification, that I wrote about in an earlier post, Greens aerification - fertilization.

Aerification 8 days ago, topdressed first and then aerified

Brushing in the sand - day 1

Day 4

8 days after aerification

Day 8

13 forward tee open

The new forward tee on #13 that we built this spring is now open for play.  #13 will play as a par 4 and the forward tees on #14 have been moved back to the back tee so it will play as a par 5.

Yardage plate is installed

This is an example of our dormant sodding that I wrote about in a previous post, .  We did the construction with frozen ground, laid the sod in a dormant state, and then during the the last 4 months of actual growing weather we grew in the tee with an intense topdressing, mowing, fertilizing and grooming program.  The tee is now at the same height of cut as the other tees, paying to the same firmness, and you would never know it was built 8 weeks ago.

7 1/2" roots

Weed Control

Controlling weeds on a golf course is something that all of us deal with.  Herbicide applications is one method that almost everybody uses, but it is always amazing in the spring to see that one of the best weed control methods is a healthy stand of dense turf.

Weeds pop up where the turf is thin

Due to our lack of irrigation coverage, we have some turf areas on the course in the rough that will thin out by the end of the long summer.  These areas are always the ones that have weeds germinate in the spring.

We do our herbicide applications as a spot treatment and only spray the areas where weeds have devloped

Spot treating infestations of spring weeds

Instead of always focusing on spraying weeds and using pre-emergents, developing a strong healthy well maintained stand of turf is the best weed control option that you have.  It may mean that we need to improve irrigation coverage, control insects, pests, or diseases, or do a better job of dispersing traffic; but a healthy stand of turfgrass will prevent the need for weed control. 

Poa Seedhead Control

Poa Annua can produce a good putting surface in the right climate and the right conditions.  One downfall of Poa is the prolific seed head production for recovery.  It is a weaker species than bentgrass, doesn't handle the hi heat nor the cold winters as well, and can be a slow grower in cooler weather, thus it puts a lot of energy and carbohydrates into seed production so it can easily and quickly recover and establish itself.  It is the highest seed production of any plant that we use in the golf industry, so seedheads on a putting surface is one of the major issues when you are maintaining Poa.

We utilize many different chemical and mechanical controls to limit seedheads, and in the spring chemical control is one of our main methods.  Greens have received their second treatment last week, and in the picture below you see a perfect straight line where the edge of the boom was on the collar from the sprayer.  Not only is their a drastic reduction in seedheads in the controlled are on the left, but look at the overall health and color of the turf.  The right side is yellow and the treated side on the left is greener and healthier.  They have received the exact same fertilization, but it shows how the Poa plant puts so much of its energy and carbohydrates into the production of seedheads that is sacrifices the health of the plant to focus on reproduction.

Left side treated, right side untreated - left side no seedheads and healthier turf 

Left side no seedheads - right side has seedheads where it was not treated

Look at the difference in the health of the turf

Greens Aerification

This has been a busy week, starting off hosting the Frontier Collegiate Conference on Monday and Tuesday and then moving into greens aerification on Wednesday and Thursday.

This year with greens aerification we decided to make some changes.  When I first arrived here 4 years ago and sent away soil samples of our greens, they came back with 6.8% organic matter. Optimally you want to maintain your greens around 4% or slightly under.  This excess organic matter led to many problems, soft and spongy greens, shallow root system, disease pressure, and poorer putting conditions.

Core aerification last spring - lots of material

The organic layer held up all the nutrients and water, harboring disease, and led to scalping of mowers, soft conditions, and greens that were not smooth or fast.  We were very aggressive in core aerifying and pulling plugs both spring and fall the last several years.  This led to soil tests that came back at 3.8% organic matter in August of last year.  So this spring we used sold tines.  I always tell people that your type of aerification should be tailored toward your end goal.  Deep tine if you need infiltration or incorporating material deep into the profile, hallow tines if you are trying to remove organic matter, and solid tines if you want to incorporate sand into the upper profile.  Now with our organic matter where we want it, our goal was to put as many holes as we could in the upper 4 inches, incorporate sand, continue to firm up the upper surface, maintain smooth surfaces, and continue with organic matter breakdown.

By not pulling a core, we took a different approach and topdressed the greens first, then followed with the aerifier.  This allowed the vibration of the aerifier to help incorporate the sand into the profile and it really worked well.

Topdressing done (on right) then aerifying - quite the difference on what the aerifier is working in

Only the aerifier has gone over this, and 50% of the sand is already in the holes

Then the brush

Rolling them out smooth

Coco fiber matt to brush them smooth

Followed then by a heavy irrigation cycle, and continued brush, mow, and roll this week on an alternating schedule.  We should have them back in good shape in about a week.  

Greens Aerification - Fertilization

Today we fertilized greens with a granular product.  Greens only get two granular applications a year, 1 in the spring and 1 in the fall, paired with the timing of aerification, and then just small amounts of various liquid products during the growing season.  This allows us to "spoon feed" the plant exactly what it needs and regulate our growth to a minimal level to maintain the green speeds that we want.

Fertilizing greens - 1 direction, overlapping half way with half the rate to achieve accuracy

One thing we do different than a lot of people is to fertilize the greens 5 days before aerification.  Our philosophy with this is that it takes 5-7 days for the product to dissolve into solution, be taken up by the plant, and to start growth.  By doing this now, the plant is actively growing the day we aerify and it considerably speeds up our recovery time after aerfication.  Many people aerify their greens and then fertilize right when they are done, I feel they loose a week of active growth by doing this and this is how we have been able to get our greens to recover so quickly after an intense aerification.

Yes, when we aerify we do remove about 15-18% of the green, organic matter, so we are removing that amount of our fertilizer, but I truly feel it is worth it when you consider a week of growth in the recovery process.  Greens aerification will be next week April 16 and 17, and the course will be closed for those two days.

Spot Fertilizing

One thing we do a lot of here at Lewiston Country Club is spot treating and spot fertilizing.  We keep records and notes from year to year about diseases and insect activity, and many times through out the season we will apply control products only to those areas that have a history of infestation.  We also take a similar approach in some of our fertilizer applications.  Fertilizing only the fairways, or tees, or areas that show us they need it.  We apply more fertilizer to Par 3 tees to help the excess divots recover faster, we apply more fertilizer to high traffic areas where the turf needs to grow more to recover and there is less thatch because of the extra wear and tear, we also treat fairway and rough areas that may have been under stress last year with more fertilizer in the spring to help them fill-in and recover faster.

Cart traffic from last fall and early winter

Here you can see an image from google earth of areas that were under stress late last year and we go out early in the spring and fertilize just those areas, that gets those areas and early jump start and the golf course more uniform and to increase the playability.  

Stress areas in yellow

Fertilizing

Now with the large irrigation project is down to a final punch list it is time to get on the course and start spreading spring fertilizer.  This is our time to increase the density of the turf that has seen a lot of winter traffic while it was dormant. Develop a healthy plant with a deep root system that will hold up to our 20+ days of 100 degrees, and improve the quality of our paying surface.  Everything we do in the next 2 1/2 months to improve the health of our turf sets up for  June, July, and August.

Fertilizing tees

We have fertilized tees, approaches, fairway spots, and rough spots this week, and greens will be fertilized next week in preparation of greens aerification the following week, April 16 and 17.