Skip to main content

No Pain, No Gain...



I have mentioned before, performing agronomic practices that benefit turfgrass for the long term, can sometimes stress the turfgrass in the short term. One of my favourite sayings is of course "No Pain, No Gain". Basically saying that "the end justifies the means".
As I am sure some of our members have noticed our aerification process has brought out some of the vulnerabilities of our property. On fairways you may notice some very dry and stressed areas (top picture) as a result of the aerification on a hot and dry August day. With the very wet spring and summer that we have had, the root growth on our turf is shallow. In some of these areas the aerifier separated the turf at the root ends and has dried out considerably. Fortunately, one of the benefits of aerification is the promotion of root growth. We are doing our best to hand water and manage these areas to promote recovery... if the forecast holds true with rain and nice warm growing weather we should recover relatively quickly.

On our greens, there is obviously alot of sand for the turf to grow through (normal for our greens program). You may have noticed some stressed/scalped area on the outside perimeter of our greens (bottom picture). This is a result of the heavy verticutting that we did. There is an issue with thatch build up on the perimeters, this is attributed to the mowing pattern in which we do with the triplex ride on greens mowers. The ride on machines are very heavy, there is a syndrome aptly named triplex ring syndrome, this is the heavy wear and tear from the tires of the mower circling the greens continuously. We try to avoid this by skipping the perimeter cut as often as we can. We are even starting to cut the perimeter with one of our walking mowers. I realize that the result of this practice (verticutting) is rather unsightly, but obviously if 90% of the green is not effected by this process, there is a problem with these areas. Through diligent aerification, verticutting and cultural management we will resolve these issues, there will just be a few bumps and bruises (literally) along the way. To aid in recovery along with fertilizer, we have put some bent grass seed down in these areas to promote some more desirable grass along the worn areas.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Practice Range Tee

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.
Post a Comment
Read more

Venting Greens...

This week we will be venting our greens with needle tines. These tines make a hole that is less than an 1/8th of inch. With our greens being completely saturated from the incredible amount of rain that we have recieved this season, there is no room for air movement in the soil. We need to create very small channels for air movement to the root zone. When roots don't have air, they die. This has not been evident yet, but with the warmer temperatures of July upon us soon, trouble could be lurking. This will be a very non-disruptive process to our members and play. We are going to vent all of our greens over then next few days early in the morning as to not disrupt play. The process is simple, we vent the green using the aerifier and needle tines, roll them smooth and then mow the green. The holes virtually dissapear and are of no effect to roll. I realize that the word aerifier starts to scare people, but this is necessary and again is very clean and non-disruptive. Check out the pic...
1 comment
Read more

Greens Cultural Management Practices Schedule

The fall is a great time to perform a number of necessary cultural practices. Our goal is to amend the upper portion of the greens surface with enough sand to help insulate the crown through the winter as well as removing and diluting organic matter. Below you will find a schedule of cultural practices that we aim to complete before the covers go on and the snow flies!!! Wednesday, Sept. 30th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt Tuesday, Wednesday October 13/14-Course Closure full core aeration with heavy topdressing. October 19th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt October 26th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt November 2nd- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt November 9th- Deep Verticut, followed by a sufficient topdressing. November 16th- Post Course Closure, Heavy topdressing followed by Deep tine aeration. Of course this is all in hope that the weather cooperates...happy fall!
Post a Comment
Read more