Winter kill in the fairways

As many superintendent know, winter kill is no fun.  We had a hard dry winter and the fairways took a little bit of the abuse.  We were able to stay on top of the winter watering on greens and tees but not the fairways.  With our new tractor mounted PTO John Deere 2000 aerifier, we finally were able to aerify fairways.  As far as I know, the fairways here at Arrowhead have never been truly aerified.  Over the past several years, we have been utilizing our Verti-drain to a depth of 6-8 inches.  The deep tine has been allowing the soil to take in water and with its "kick affect" it has been shattering the sub soil and relieving the years of compaction. With this years late start to the season, due to the numerous snow storms in April and May, we have been aerfiying and seeding the fairways.  We are going about 1 1/2- 2 inches deep to remove the thatch layer.  We are reseeding all winter kill spots.  I have attached a few pictures of the Rye grass popping in the aerification holes.  It will only be a matter of time till you no longer see the damage from this past winter.   

Is it still winter?

March and April have been some interesting months.  We did not have any significant snow fall until the end of January and the snow is still continuing into mid-April.  The last few weeks, we have been receiving snow fall ranging from 6-16 inches every 7-14 days.  We had planned to aerify greens and the 8th and 9th but we got snowed out.  Rescheduled to the 16th and 17th but we got snowed out.  With the golf and tournament season knocking on my door, we have planned to skip greens aerification all together.  Soil temperatures are still in the mid 30's and recovery from aerification will be slow.  We will star and needle tines the greens every 3-4 weeks throughout the growing season to keep them happy and healthy.  We are still planning on aerifying all tees, collars, approaches, fairways and rough.  We can shuffle our schedule around as to not bother our guests experiences.  This cultural practice will start as soon as weather permits us.  Arrowhead's fairways have never been truly aerfied so this first attemp will be interesting.  We are planning on core aerifiying with 3/4 inch tines to about 2 inches in depth to remove the many years of thatch build-up.  We will be reseeding all winter kill areas at a high rate with RPR Ryegrass.  All tees, collars, approaches will be reseeded with RPR Ryegrass.  Greens will be seeded with T1 when optimal soil temperature rises for Bentgrass germination. 

Frost Delay and why?

By USGA Green Section

I am an early-morning golfer. What is the justification for frost delays?

 

Frost is essentially frozen dew. Ice crystals visible on the outside of the plant can also form on the inside of grass blades. The grass plant, normally resilient to footsteps or cart traffic, becomes brittle and fragile when ice crystals form. Under the pressure of traffic, ice crystals puncture living plant tissues and rupture plant cells. Damage will not appear right away, but it will show up in footsteps and tire tracks the following days as the plant is unable to repair itself and begins to die. Frost damage can occur on any turfgrass mowed at any height, but it is amplified when the plant is mowed low, as on a putting green.
Keep in mind that a foursome typically takes several hundred footsteps on each green, so even allowing just a few groups to play when frost is present can be very damaging to the greens, as well as to the rest of the golf course. It is not completely understood when frost will cause damage, so the decision to keep traffic off the course must be made conservatively to protect the condition of the course. For this reason, golf facilities are wise to delay starting times in the morning until frost has completely melted.

This article was written by Ty McClellen, Manager Green Section Education

New Equipment Package!

The new equipment package has FINALLY arrived!!!!  I want to thank CNL, Charlie Staples, Mike Miraglia and Victor Rodarte for allowing this to happen.  We were in desperate need to get new equipment.  It had been over 6 years since we got anything new and over a decade since we got any new mowing equipment.  Billy, our equipment manager had been able to keep old equipment running for a long time, but time was finally catching up.  We lost a tee mover last year when the engine blew up and a fairway mower that was on its last leg.  We were able to replace a lot of old equipment with newer models.  We purchased equipment from a company in Maryland that refurbishes them.  Some of this equipment was stripped down to the frame and engine block and rebuilt.  We were able to to purchase 2 Toro Fairway mowers, 2 Toro Tee Triplexes, 1 Toro Sand pro, a John Deere Fairway aerifier and a Toro Greens sprayer.  I am so happy that we are now able to aerify fairways which is going to make a huge difference in playing conditions. 

Phase 1 is complete of the pump station, phase 2?

Well, phase one of the construction is done.  The new pump station has been installed, IREA finally moved the transformer so we can have power and we are all tied-in into the existing mainline.  The crew from American Landscape did a great job installing the pump station.  The only thing we are missing is the Euserc cabinet from IREA (they are the only company that requires it) to hook up the power to the pump station.  Oh ya, the building.  We can thank Douglas County on this one.  As they sit around on the permits for the past 3 weeks wanting  more and more money from us to put up a "shed" to cover the station; they are requiring too many people to get involved in this project.  They are requiring us to get a civil engineer to tell us that we need to seed the bare ground.  Of course we will seed the ground, we are a golf course, it is our job to make the grounds look great.  What else can we do to make them happy? 
We are planning on energizing the pump station the week of April 8th, building or no building.  We have grass to regrow because mother nature was not good to us this winter.  Cross your fingers!

Wet Well and Pipe

 Truck carrying the HDPE pipe

 Track hoe digging out the trench for the new 24 inch in-take pipe

 Carrying pipe to the site

 24 inch HDPE pipe being fused together

 Wet well stacks

 Carrying in the wet well

The 3 man crew from American Golf Construction is top notch.  They have already installed the wet well and the 24 inch in-take pipe.  Next step is to start back filling the the wet well and the trench leading into the pond.  We will be repairing the pond liner and once that is done we will start filling the lake again.  Keep checking back in daily to see our progress. 

Pump Station and Pump House Project

This project has been talked about for the past few years.  It was a long process but I am glad that we are under way.  We are installing an irrigation pump station, wet well, in-take pipe and pump house.  Our old pump station was original from 1972 and the wet well was collapsing allowing soil to get into our irrigation system clogging our sprinkler heads.  We first drained the lake by filling our ponds on the course.  As the water level dropped, the irrigation pond split in two and we relocated the fish to the south side of the lake.  We used sand bags to keep as much water in the south side to provide ample room for the fish to swim.  As the ice and snow melted from our last big storm (22 inches of snow) we rented a 4 inch trash pump to remove the rest of the remaining water.  We teamed up with American Golf Construction who will be performing all the necessary work.  They dug out 14 feet of sand stone to install the wet well.  They pulverized the sand stone and they are using it as the back fill around the wet well.