Labour Day marks a few things for us at the Grounds Dept. First and foremost it is our Club Championship weekend. A lot of work goes on throughout the club to ensure a great weekend is had by all. Secondly, we begin to lose a few of our summer staff members, our students are a valuable portion of our staff and we will miss them. Third, the end of summer is upon us, this summer has been very stressful for both turf grass and staff...the heat and humidity has taken it's toll on both. September is a welcomed month with the shorter days and the cooler temperatures. Last but not least, now that we are on our way out of the most stressful time for turf grass, we will be ramping up our cultural practices again. Next week we will be lightly topdressing greens, we will then be venting all of our greens as well. This is a very non disruptive process as the holes that we punch are very, very small. There is no recovery time with this process, the greens will be back to normal (actually better) once the process is complete. This practice is vital to the health of our greens, the heavy rains are clogging our root zone and the high temperatures are restricting root growth. September is a perfect time to encourage root growth to sustain a healthy plant going forward into the fall and winter.
Last fall we utilized a “new to us” method of revitilization for our practice tee. Our contractor TDS, fraize mowed the surface of the tee to remove organic matter as well at to aid in leveling. The tee was then aerified and seeded to a new variety of creeping rye grass. We chose this type of turf grass as research shows rapid recovery and a low growth habit. We were able to get some great growth in the fall, but the tee is still not ready for traffic and full use. The plan is to utilize the mats until growth has filled in some of the voids etc. We will then begin to slowly set up hitting areas on the grass tee. For a while we will alternate between grass and the mats with a 50/50 ratio of use. Once the grass tee is established and is in adequate recovery mode, the practice areas will be back to normal. As always our membership’s patience is appreciated as we try to improve these areas for use.
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