December 19th Update

This will be short and sweet.  Not much of any significance has changed on the golf course with respect to snow cover and the "ice" situation.  All surfaces are still frozen with about 6" of snow and some have a thin layer of crumbly ice directly on the surface.  We need to get through January without any significant rain or increase in temperature and then I'll have a better idea of where we stand, hopefully.

Fall projects are the usual equipment tear down and reel grinding for the mechanic.  Brad built a few more of the garbage enclosures that will be used on select holes to accent the brick work we will continue doing around the ball washers.

Garbage Enclosure

I like the idea of these things because they hide the garbage and they are cheap to make.  The material costs are:
1. Two packages wood panelling: $16/can
2. Wire mesh: $6.50/can
3. A quarter of a 5/8's plywood for lid: $8
4. Recycled 2x6 from the clubhouse deck for the base: $0
5. Recycled 2x10 from old shop: $0
6. Staples for air gun, glue, misc. : $5/can
7. Stain: portion of 2 cans @$50? maybe $10

Total materials is around  $45/enclosure.  We are getting a little thin on the recycled lumber but the amounts we use are minimal and having to add the extra lumber would only increase the cost by another $10 or so.  Labour?  Building and staining 5 of them took just under 60 man hours.   They are not a necessity but I think they add something.

Hopefully, you had time to answer the survey I posted a link to in the last post.  Go to Kimberley Bulletin Article to read the article that was appeared in Friday's paper.  Unofficial grapevine has things will remain status quo but we'll have to wait.  I was pleased to hear from a number of people who took the time to fill out the survey.  Again, hopefully, we will get a better representation of what people across the province really want.

Unless things get strange on the course my posts for the next month will be sparse but will start up more frequently in February when all the "Snowbirds" may be starting to think about comin' home.

We got a problem....

The "we" in that statement encompasses anyone who has anything to do with golf.  Somewhere in the cacophony of news I'm sure you've heard that the provincial government has plans to create new legislation concerning pesticides (see: Bill Bennett weighs in on cosmetic pesticides ).  This topic exhausts me but it also gets me riled up (go to the Bill Bennett link and read the comments; especially the one by Agent_Whatever.....somebody you may know).  It's hard not to appear as a single minded,  uncaring, environmentally polluting, self interested capitalist when opposing a pesticide ban.  I can appreciate peoples concerns but the debate has become entirely emotional and has turned into a pissing match between both sides and their experts.  Both sides have arguments that support their view but as anybody over 30 or anyone who follows the news knows its all about how you present your facts.
Provincially the ball got rolling, I think, with the New Democrats proposing bill M-203 (Cosmetic Pesticide and Carcinogen Control Act).  Although it was defeated, some of the points included were:

1.) banning pesticides use on non-residential areas including institutional, industrial, commercial and recreational properties.
2.) a 5 year phase-out of pesticide use by golf courses
3.) allow municipalities to pass more restrictive bylaws
and, a contradiction that that kills me every time,
4.)  does not apply to the agriculture or forestry industry!

I am repeating myself, but if pesticides are so bad then why not an across the board ban?  Economics?  Employment?  Here is some stats about golf in British Columbia you're going to see a few times:

- Golf contributes over $4 billion in gross production annually

- Golf employs nearly 50,000 people in BC.

- Tax revenue from golf exceeds $400 million annually

Here is a one fact no person can dispute and one that I promise will happen without pesticide use:

Snow Mould Damage
on a Putting Green

With the climate in our area the biggest disease issue is snow mould and the damage it causes.  There is no effective alternative to fungicides for snow mould control.  There are numerous angles to debate but in politics it is numbers, financial and votes, that drive any governmental decision.  Right now decisions are being made on assumptions that, for instance, information derived from an online survey in February 2010 is indicative of all British Columbians feelings towards a ban.  That survey had 8000 respondents with 88% supporting a pesticide ban.  The population of British Columbia in 2010 was 4.5 million.  You need to go to this link https://www.leg.bc.ca/pesticidescommittee/ before December 16th and answer the survey the way that best suits your beliefs.  I hope to e-mail out some more information before the dead line to educate people.  Remember, pesticides is a very broad category that includes more than just Weed 'N Feed and you need to understand what you're supporting, for or against, and the consequences of your choice or inaction.

Week of November 28th

I went and checked some surfaces to see how things have changed over the past couple days and things have changed a bit since last posting.

Snow Depth on #4 Green

Generally, there is enough snow cover on all greens to give us an insulating layer.  Some surfaces have remained thawed and should be good for rest of winter.  Others that were semi-thawed are now frozen and, along with the greens that remained frozen since the beginning of the season, have a pebbled ice surface of maybe 1/2  inch thick.  The ice still lacks any real cohesiveness but is probably solid enough to prevent damage to the surface during snow removal in the spring.

"Pebbley" ice and Grass on #4

Because of the greens it is on (most don't see much sun this time of year) and the fact that it is removed fairly easily all we are going to do is watch it and make sure it doesn't grow thicker and/or more dense.  If conditions change we'll begin pulling random turf plugs and decided on a course of action based on what we see.  I'll keep you updated.

Week of November 20th

The was not the weather I wanted in the middle of November!  After that nice 15 cm of snow last Thursday we had another 11 cm come Tuesday a.m.  However, that was followed by one inch of rain over the next 2 days!  By the end of the rain the snow had been compressed 50%  to just to over 12cm.

Just under 24cm snow Tuesday a.m

Just under 12cm (radio is 12cm to base of antenna) on Thursday

I was fairly sure ice would appear on the surface of the frozen greens but as of today, Thursday, November 24 there doesn't appear to be any ice on any of the surfaces I checked.  Even better was the fact that those greens that were frozen seem to have thawed slightly which is maybe why no ice developed.  The forecast is for fairly normal weather (flurries, highs near zero and lows around -4 degrees Celsius) which is good.

Situations like this are far from my favorite but they do help develop a data base of experience which can aid in making decisions next time out.  Before we went and checked each green yesterday, I was under the assumption that a rain event of that size would be a problem since that has been the case in years past (anybody remember 18 G the spring of 2008?).  Even after having the worst case scenario I talked about in the previous post play itself out and things now appearing "rosy" I hesitate to comment on how the turf will overwinter.  Heck, we still have one week of November left!  I've been spraying the greens as late as December 14th so, suffice to say, we are not out of the woods yet.

It's What it is Now

15 cm last night.  Hopefully, it is here to stay!  We've been monitoring the greens, specifically #4, and ended up leaving things alone.  I guess the good news (ice wise) is nothing has really changed or gotten any worse.  The extra snow is actually nice since it will help buffer any dramatic weather changes.  Best case it keeps snowing from now until March.  Worst case, above normal temps with rain.

Yesterday one of the "herd" had a problem:

This deer managed to get his antlers tied up in the netting on the driving range.  Luckily for him, someone saw him near the end of the day.  I wasn't involved but I guess the extraction procedure involved a bit of a tussle and, apparently, the buck still has chunked of netting wrapped up in his antlers.  Could have been worse.

To Snow Blow or Not To Snow Blow.....

That sounds a little melodramatic but that is one of the arguments I've been having with myself since last Thursday (Nov. 10th).  As referenced in the last post, the small layer of snow remaining on the greens could be a problem.  The forecast last week was calling for increasing temperatures and possible showers.  We ended up making the call last Thursday to remove the thin layer of snow on those greens where ice could develop.  The real troublesome greens were already tarped so the greens we removed the snow from were those greens that had a frozen surface, had some occurrence of winter damage in the past, and where the snow had slightly melted .  The other greens that hadn't really seen any late season heat still had a couple inches of snow on their surface so we left them.  We ended up taking the snow off of 4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 18.  The moisture that ended up coming was a mixture of wet snow and rain and made for some interesting conditions.

Snow Layer 14G

By Sunday most of the greens were like the above picture: a fluffy snow layer over corn snow over frozen ground.  The corn layer is porous but tight and crumbled with little effort.  The greens that had the snow removed were a bit different.

9 Green

Obviously there was less snow in general and the surface on all (with the exception of one) were slightly thawed.  Again the snow layer was a tight corn snow but still came off the surface with minimal effort.  The funky one is 4 green.  The surface is bullet proof and the snow cover is very solid or, dare I say it, "ice like"?  The layer is small and does come off with a bit more effort but now we have to decide what it could turn into.  Again, the forecast is for more snow which puts a time constraint on removing the snow from 4 green since I would want anything left on the green surface after snow blowing to melt.  Also, forecasted overnight lows are below -10 degrees Celsius and exposing a partially melted surface to that temperature is pretty much a guaranty for ice.  There is always a way to rationalize your choices but it is only with the benefit of hindsight do you know if the right choice was made so, again, To Snow Blow or Not To Snow Blow......

Bring it on

I guess it can snow any time now.  The sprays have all been applied to the greens (I've still got one in my back pocket if conditions dictate it), tees, and fairways.  We did a few experiments with different rates and different products including one that is more a plant health promoter with fungicidal properties.  We also did a little demonstration that should have people talking in the spring....however, there was sort of glitch that may have balled up the demonstration but everyone is just going to have to wait until spring to find out more!

Tarp wise we went with the same general idea of laying tarps as we did last winter:  permeable over-wintering tarps of varying weight on #1, #6, and #15 greens and the sandwich approach (permeable on the green surface which was then covered with an impermeable tarp) on #7 green.  A few of the covered greens were sprayed with an extra preventative fungicide application since the humidity under the tarps can be artificially high and that can encourage disease development.  I had planned on purchasing some extra tarps for this winter but decided against it for budgetary reasons and the fact that the greens that have a history of being funky in the spring already have tarps.  I will budget for more in the spring since they are useful for encourage growth regardless of the spring conditions and who knows what next spring may bring?

We went out last week and put up the fences around those greens with a history of animal traffic patterns. To make things go quicker we installed a series of steel sleeves around those greens that we fence every year. For each green we have measurements of each sleeve from a central point and with that information and a metal detector we go out each fall and find the locations for the posts.  This is sort of a throw back to those days when the elk seemed to show up before the snow fell or the ground was able to freeze and we had to fence greens to control damage.  With elk traffic patterns and herd size changing it seems to be a far less of a problem in recent years.  They still show up but it seems later on and in smaller numbers.  This might be one of those things we can do differently to save time since it seems the elk are less of a problem.

Looking for Sleeves

This past week we had  a small accumulations of snow that will work nicely as a insulation layer to protect the short cut turf from the forecasted lows of -15.  We'll keep an eye out for weather changes since this thin layer of snow could, if lightly rained on, form an ice layer.  If we get more snow and it accumulates to around 8" to 10" we should be on our way.

Snow and Fencing on #10 Fairway

Some More Fall Activities Picts

So far the fall has been fairly typical work and weather wise.  We were able to deep tine all the greens again this fall with 3/4 inch solid tines.  Because we've been using this type of aeration for a few years now we were able to go as deep as 10 inches on certain greens with no detrimental effects.

Verti Drain Operating on #1 Green

Some of the greens (those with a little or no substance to their root zone) have a tendency to overly "puff up" when aerated at too deep a depth.  For those greens we lessened the depth and slowed the tractor which seemed to help keep the turf in place.  This time out we also rolled the greens with the tractor and aerator after we finished aerating and that really seemed to help lessen the "puffiness" factor.

Rolling to Smooth the
Green Surface

Depending on our spring and the health of the greens after this winter, we will have to aerate again early in the season to make up for missing this falls hollow core aeration.  I am still not sure how that will work itself out but the hope is that by pulling a core early on in the spring the greens will be able to recover from both styles of aeration in the time it would normally take for the surfaces to recover from just the fall's deep tine.

If there is any good news this fall it could be the fact that we found very few trees (just over 20) attacked by the pine beetle.  The flip side is the fact that some of those trees we found were very large Ponderosa's that dominate the scenery a KGC.

Cleaning up Ponderosa on
#6 Fairway

Hauling Logs From
#15 Green

As before, we will take the infected trees and process them in some fashion so as to kill the beetle.  

You may be finished but we're not

Sort of the same theme as last year at this time.  Now that the golfing season is done we are are in a race against Mother Nature to get everything wrapped up before the weather goes funky.  We still need to finish aerating fairways, scout and fall beetle trees, finish installing irrigation on the driving range and prep for seeding in the spring, begin our winter disease prevention sprays, collect all the accessories on the course, deep tine aerate the greens, install tree protectors on the planted trees, blow the city lines on the golf course, find the buried steel sleeves and install the fencing around the greens, tarp certain greens, finish installing new fuel tanks at the shop, and ????? all before the snow flies.

Frosty mornings play havoc with most of what we need to do but we work with the weather by starting those jobs that can be done without driving on the turf.  I am sorry to say, but it is nice not having any golfers around since we are free to move about without having to watch for balls or people, especially when it comes to tasks such as falling trees and applying control products for disease prevention on the turf.  I'm not the only one that feels that way.......somebody must have sent out a memo the day we closed.

Sow and Cub #1 Fwy

Some of the many deer all over the course

Driving Range Update

We finished the sodding of the tee deck in that pouring rain of a couple of Fridays ago.  We were covered in slimy goo so there was no pictures of the process but here is one of the end result.

Driving Range Tee

 As mentioned previously, we are trying to finish installing the irrigation and get things back filled and levelled in anticipation of seeding in the spring.  A rough accounting of the project up to this point includes: cat work ($7950), irrigation ($2960), sod ($3800), miscellaneous (mostly shipping: $1500), labor ($1700 approximately - defined by the fact that two extra people stayed on extra time to help with our regular fall work), and most  likely the remaining expenses for this phase of the project are those associated with seeding ($1500-$2000) which just over $18 000 (plus the labour costs).  Not quite the $100,000+ the rumour mill was churning out but hopefully it will look like we spent that much!  I guess the hope is we have a nice spring that will allow us to get on the range early so we can seed.  Once the sod is rooted and we have the irrigation working people will be able to hit balls.  The worst part will be picking the balls in the goo but maybe we'll get a quick catch and that will be a short lived inconvenience.

What's new.

This past week has been very busy and my time has been spread pretty thin so some stuff got put back burner. As I threatened last post, we have begun to aerate this week. We will begin with the fairways (see The Down Hill Slide....from 2010 for information on why) and will move onto greens starting the week of the 25th.
The tournament schedule leading up to last week sort of played with our falling spray program dates and, as a result, we have quite a bit of Fusarium (again, see posting from 2010 title Week of May 23 for more info on Fusarium) on the greens but we did get the first of our treatment down at the beginning of the week and now all we have to do is grow out the damage from this bout of disease and keep up with treatments on our normal fall schedule.
If you've played this week you probably noticed the work going on at the range. I was waiting until I posted anything about the project but that is just stupid because if I wait until it is done everyone will have found out for themselves, or worse, through the rumour mill about what is going on. I'll treat the project like the "River Updates" and rehash the week and give notice of what is to come the following week so people know what's what.

Driving Range Update
Firstly why the range and why now? The "why the range" was touched on in last weeks post (see Update). Why now? The quick and dirty answer might be something along lines of "best bang for the buck". Few other projects discussed by the Strategic Planning committee and presented to the Board of Directors had the same cost to potential revenue ratio (if there really is such a ratio?!). A new green or new tee would update the layout but, unless you're planning to do nine new golf holes, I'm not sure how much more play building or updating a single tee would bring in (not saying we don't need to do that, but that is whole new topic!), A driving range can add to the bottom line of a golf course in many ways. People buy driving range passes on top off their regular seasons pass and if your range is suitable people will come and practice even if they aren't members. The more people that hang around the club the greater the exposure and the better off the club will be in many aspects including membership numbers and extra revenue. Furthermore, a suitable range opens up numerous opportunities for offering special lessons and even the development of multi day clinics which again means more people spending time at KGC.

Right now the bulk of the work is stripping the old sod and moving material. We don't have the equipment to do that so we brought in a bulldozer to rough shape the range.

Pushin' the old tee deck

Prior to stripping material we dug out all the irrigation heads (24 in total) and will re-use those when we add back new pipe to the range. We also took the time to remove the perennials on the back of the tee and will use those around the golf course.

Bucket O' Perennials

Next post will have some information on how much material we needed to move but until then the following picture shows how much material was moved after one day (and, FYI, at the point this picture was taken we weren't even half way!)

Wildlife
On Thursday we got to watch the cubs and their "mom" devour some of the chokecherries around the putting green. Next to 3 green they demolished the Schubert chokecherry tree. I think I may have to admit that a Schubert is a poor choice for a tree at KGC.

River Watch

September 24

The flow is so low now that we can't even pump 130 GPM any more. At present, we have had to use one of the control valves to limit the pump station output to 100 GPM. I guess the good news is the reservoir is mostly full and the water demands are somewhat limited. I am not having much luck getting hold of the necessary government departmental representatives to line up the required permits to perform the obviously needed work at our intake. I'll keep trying and, hopefully, things fall into place before next April or, worst cast, next August.

Upate

Starting next week (September 19th week) we will begin to do a small renovation project on the golf course. In an effort to update and make some of our facilities more usable the club decided to direct resources at bettering the driving range. The ultimate goal will be to increase the teeing area and grade the range so players are able to see the balls they hit land at any distance over the entire breadth of the range. The range will close for the season once we begin moving earth and it is planned for it to open early next spring. I'll post greater details and the progression of the project in the future.

Wildlife

No real news to anybody who has golfed over the past month but there is small bear who is making KGC his stomping grounds.

It has taken me this long to get a decent picture. We think it is the same bear from last year since the white marking on its chest are similar to one we had around the course last fall. The good news is he is healthy looking and making short order of this seasons saskatoons. We are notifying players when the bear is out and there is a posting on number one tee informing the uninitiated on how to handle encounters. (Click link for information regarding bear encounters www.env.gov.bc.ca/wld/documents/bearwld.htm)

River Watch

Still hanging in there. The single operating pump shutdown on Sunday and we were down beginning of this week to move rocks to get it up an running again at around 130 GPM. The combined fertilizing and nice weather require us to use more water than usual this time of year so the reservoir is low but as long as we can keep pumping until we blow the lines in October we should be able to fill the reservoir and have water for the beginning of next year......FYI: we like to have the reservoir full in the spring since there has been years where we've been using water on the course but were unable to pump up from the river because of a low run off. For me its comparable to having money tucked away in a sock for a rainy day.

September 15

Not so exciting times

My dad says there is a Chinese curse that says something along the lines of "may you live in exciting times". Keeping that phrase in mind I can honestly say over the past couple weeks we've been blessed and definitely not cursed. Events on the the golf course have been extremely typical almost leaning towards boring. With summer staff leaving we don't really have the staff for small projects such as the paving block work we've been doing around the ball washer areas at the tees. Most of our time has been spent doing routine maintenance.

I've done a very preliminary scout of "beetle trees"and have found more. The most disturbing find so far is next to 6 green where a very large Ponderosa pine was hit hard by the beetle. This is the first large tree on the front nine to be attacked. Its location next to the road, power lines, and 6 green may result in us having to remove some extra trees to get it to fall where it will do the least damage. We will start to visit the usual areas and by the end of September I should have a good idea of how many trees we need to fall.

Dying Ponderosa on the Right

The club is hosting a regional tournament this Saturday so we won't start anything too crazy but be forewarned it is time to aerate. We will start by picking away at the fairways and then start in on the greens by the third or fourth week in September. There is some projects bubbling away on the back burner and if those heat up I may need to move regular fall preparation up a week or two.

River Watch

August 28

September 8

We've been running on one pump (about 230 GPM) since the end of August and have been able to keep up with the golf course demand. This past Monday we had the first low wet well shutdown. I was able to adjust the flow down to 180 GPM but that only lasted a day and the pumps shutdown again. I had to decrease the flow further to 120 GPM to keep the one pump filling the reservoir . We brought down a crew of 4 and after a couple of hours of moving rocks and we able to increase the flow near the intake allowing me to operate the pumps at around 180 GPM. This is only the first of many visits to keep the water flowing so stay tuned for more updates.

August Update

The heat we are getting now is very nice. It's even nicer that we are getting it in August and not July since that would make for a very long summer for the turf (and the my staff!). Also, I'm pretty sure it won't last past the September long weekend. The other nice thing about August heat is the August nights can be cool and grass likes to grow roots during warm days and cool nights. Those areas with inferior irrigation are becoming very obvious with the heat and since we've had no appreciable rain for weeks those areas with no irrigation are in complete summer dormancy. Golf course wise we are just trying to hang on and get through the Pucksters Tournaments.

Wildlife

Not the best picture but just last week I saw a turkey hen and her brood out on 12 tee.

River Watch

We had some problems with the connection to the river but half a day, a pump, shovels, and two guys got everything going again. The flow is still good but it is dropping weekly. Before this little blast of heat and wind I thought our water usage would be on the decline but the turf is drying faster than I can water.

August 7

August 18

More holes

I could include the usual pre-amble regarding lack of posts over the last couple weeks (not much happening, staffing, etc., etc.) but it never changes so I won't bother going into any detail.

We started to aerate the tees this week as well as needle tine the greens with our deep tine aerator the same as we did last year (see deep tine ). Both are fairly low key events and will be followed by a light top dressing on the greens next week and and a heavy top dressing on the tees.

Obligatory Aeration/Clean up
Picture for the Tees

A little follow up to the from our spot fairway aeration I referenced during the July 7th post.

New Grass In
Aeration Holes

This picture was taken July 17th and shows all the little sprouts from the overseeding coming up. With the possible exception of the aeration on the left of 14 fairway all other areas are looking great and the whole process has allowed me to back off the water in these areas as well as eliminate any extra hand watering. This is something we will start up again in September when the timing is better.

The fox is still around and has made the local paper. In the following picture the fox is within arms length and was busy eating a mouse.

River Watch

Here we go again. I'm optimistic that with the level it is now and the the fact that it is already August we should have no problems but I want to keep a record and this is a good vehicle for doing that.

River Level
August 7

Something different from this springs run off was the deposit of a log just outside the intake. The angle is perfect but if I could choose I would place it 300 yard up stream so the log could continue to direct the flow of the water to the intake as the river level dropped.

LDS not LSD

No you're not hallucinating there is something funky on the greens. Sometimes with the heat (and usually after an aeration) the greens can develop dinner plate sized spots which can sometimes coalesce into a nice paisley patterns that cover large areas. The spots are a result of the turf being water stressed and are called Localized Dry Spots (LDS). There is multiple reasons why these occur including too much thatch, soil compaction, steep slopes, insects, disease, and the obvious one, poor irrigation coverage. Also, a sandy root zone that has accumulated enough organic molecules on a number of sand particles can eventually reach a point where the moisture content is so low that the growth media change from wettable to non-wettable resulting in the eventual turf decline.

LDS spot at the T-handle

End of the Soil Probe

Within LDS the sand is powder dry. I took two plugs, one from a LDS and one directly next a LDS to demonstrate.

Plug with Adequate Moisture

Versus Plug from LDS

We deal with these spots in a couple of ways. First, we spike the green surface to help break the surface tension that develops over the LDS. The equipment we use is nothing more than a series of "ninja throwing stars" lined up on a shaft which rotates as we pull it over the green.

Spiker Kit

The holes created are about one inch deep and hardly disrupt the surface.

Spiking Aftermath

To take full advantage of the perforations in the green surface the second thing we do is spray a class of product called a wetting agent. This product also has the characteristic of decreasing water surface tension as well as acting as a surfactant that allows the interaction of the dipolar water molecules with non-polar organic molecules coating some sand particles with the end result of making the once hydrophobic sand particle hydrophilic.

Usually, we can get a few months between treatments but a lot of that has to do with the weather (as usual) and how dry we let the greens get in between watering cycles. The easy thing to do would be to never shut the water off on the greens but that makes for some squishy greens so if it heats up more and we keep the greens dry you may see these spots before you eyes again before the season is up.

More aeration

What to write about when nothing seems new? I guess I could do a quick review of the past couple weeks. We continued with aerating other spots once the greens where done. I made mention of why we aerate and top dress the collars and aprons in the past (see aerating collars) and the same reasons still hold true this time out.

Puchin' #13 Approach

We also took the time to aerate select spots on the certain fairways. We've done this many times in the past during early summer and it has resulted in better conditions during the remainder of the season for those select spots. We choose areas that a prone to drying out and, as a result, require extra work to keep them playable and looking good. We try to punch as many holes as possible and then overseed those areas with a blend of bluegrass/rye grass seed. I like to reuse the cores we collect from the spring greens aeration mixed with one part Nature's Gold (commercial compost composed of ..... you don't want to know but if you know someone in Kelowna chances are pretty good some of their "business" is on our fairways) and one part sand. We lay it on pretty thick with the hope of filling the newly created holes. The top dressing will also cover the seeds which helps give a better catch.

Aerating and Cleaning Cores
at Lone Pine

The next area to see the aerator will be the tees but I think everybody needs a bit of reprieve so chances are we won't be doing tees until the end of July.

One more quick comment about the greens aeration. I can see with the benefit of hindsight that the greens at KGC didn't really respond the way I had hoped. Although they are growing well with lots of grass and new roots are starting to appear they are still too soft. With the heat arriving last weekend I was happy with how well they coped, however, that was short lived and now we are having to hand water LDS (Localized Dry Spots) like crazy. Ultimately, the greens will be better off but my preference would be to not deal with the problems we are facing now. This falls aeration will not be as aggressive as I alluded to in the last post but more likely a repeat of the 2010 fall aeration (2010 fall aeration)

4 Green Surface

Aerating Greens

On Monday and Tuesday of this week (and Wednesday also, actually) we aerated all greens. It's now Saturday and time for an early assessment of the process.

Day One

We followed the same idea as last year and only required 3 guys to aerate the greens and pick the cores.

Cleaning Up Cores

Surface Immediately after
Aerating

The pattern we tried this time out was a tight 1.5" X 1.5" with an 3/8's - 3/4's cross tine set alternating with a 1/4 - 1/4 side eject set. With that combination of tines we pulled three 3/8's and four 1/4" cores and punched three 3/4 slices per holder for a total of forty-two holes and eighteen slices over the width of the aerator. Using an average size green at KGC and it works out to be 600,000 holes over the entire surface but because we used some cross tines (FYI cross tines just punch a hole in the shape of an X and don't remove any material) we really only pulled an average of 420,000 cores per green.

Day 2

2 Days After Aeration and
1 Day After Sand Top Dressing

We top dressed in two direction at a medium rate. I think that may have been a mistake since the larger holes may be too big to disappear in a timely fashion. My concern was adding too much sand and then end up stressing the greens while trying to incorporate/disperse the excess sand. We've done that before and that process comes with its own set of headaches.

Day 3

Some greens dried out more than others following aeration and on those stressed greens the larger holes remained prominent. Again, more sand would have helped here.

Day 4

Not really a whole lot different from the previous day. Although the weather was cool following aeration I don't really think that impacted recovery. The visible holes in the above picture are from the 3/8 's tines.

I guess good news is all the greens appear healthy and are growing. They are very soft not only from the aeration but also from all the extra water they are getting as we try to limit drought stress. We will have to top dress again but you won't notice. The mechanic, however, will since the reels will need extra sharpening this week. We will have play a bit with tine selection before our next aeration in the fall. We aerated the new putting green with all 3/8's on a 1.5"x1.5" spacing and it handled it not too bad. I know not every green on the course could handle that spacing but based on this aeration we may try using 1/4" tines on the 1.5"x1.5" spacing instead and see what comes of that.

More Wildlife

This week was busy with aerating and top dressing the greens and select areas on the fairways. I'll review how things went on the next post. This posting is short and is only meant to highlight some wild life sightings. This fox in the following picture has been cruising the course over the past couple days looking for "good eats".

Just after I took this picture he trotted directly next to my vehicle like I wasn't even there. I later saw him carrying what I hoped was a gopher in his mouth but, unfortunately, I think it was a chipmunk.

Not so unique but still awfully cute was this picture of a very new fawn that was born on Wednesday in the bush just off of 11 fairway.

They won't be such a nuisance if they stayed this small and lived in trees but I guess the squirrels pretty much have that market cornered.