July 14 Update

The full package and moss eradication

Hey folks,

Hope all is well and you’re are surviving the humidity. As some of you have noticed tee times were limited on Monday due to our Maintenance morning. We appreciate the chance to get some of more critical cultural practices completed and I’m sure you will see the benefit soon. We undertook what we call “the full package”. Its a combination of a number of practices, designed to promote turf health. As always, turf health and playability don’t go hand in hand, but in a few days things will calm down and we’ll see the results.

Here’s the process in pictures:

Step 1: Mow the greens. This removes the dew from the turf and helps to dry the sand and core later in the process.

Step 2: Verticut the green. This is vertical mowing, used to remove thatch and cut the horizontal leaves. I typically don’t like to do this in the summer as it knocks the Poa seed heads off into the open cut lines, but the horizontal growth from the recovery in the spring was excessive.

Step 3: Aerate the green. Most people are familiar with this. We have machine that pokes holes in the green and removes a core. It opens the surface of the green and allows for water infiltration, gas exchange, root development and the transfer of nutrients / soil additives.

The tines we are using are a quarter inch in size, designed to have a small impact on the surface of the green. At the spacing we are using the tines remove about 1% of the surface which helps us achieve our 15% goal for the year.

Step 4: Blow off all debris from the green. After letting the debris dry for a bit we blow it off the green and into the rough.

Step 5: Mow the green again. This takes off any turf sticking and cleans up any remaining debris

Step 6: Top-dress the green. This process should also be familiar to you folks. The USGA sand we use works its way in to the canopy of the green and fills voids and the tines holes. It helps to smooth out the green, support the new plants and cover the seeds prior to germination. Here’s yours truly running running this rig. Most of greens have the same rate but some we increased the rate to help support the voids from the winter recovery.

Step 7: Seed the weak areas. Pretty straight forward, here’s Cameron doing that. We seed after so he can see his tracks.

Steps 8: Brush and roll the sand into the green. For this we use a vibratory roller with a mounted brush on the front that Mack created. It smooths the sand out and the vibrations work the sand into the canopy. Obviously the greens with the extra sand will take longer to work the sand in.

The final step is to water the green excessively for a day or two to help work the sand in and relieve stress. Unfortunately we weren’t able to complete all 18 before the first couple of groups caught us so we finished the remaining holes this morning, so there will be some differences between the earlier greens and later greens. The recovery from this process should be short, a day or two of sand for the morning players, but the greens are still running fine and should only improve as the week progresses. If you have any questions let me know and I can expand on the process.

As expected the moss has keeled over from our quicksilver application and has left the blackened marks on the greens. Most visible would be 1 and 2. I applied the quicksilver ahead of the aeration to give us a chance to get some seed in those areas. This wont be a one shot deal, and we will continue to work on them till they are filled in.

Stay tuned for more info and thanks for your patience!