Getting my Ducks in a Row

Fall is always has an aura of panic associated with it for me.  We really are fighting the calendar and losing one or two days to breakdowns, bad weather, or even late season play could have repercussions the following spring.  This year the course closed Thanksgiving weekend (Oct.14); last year we closed a week after Thanksgiving weekend (Oct.14, strangely enough).  Last year staff was laid off early and the fall work was completed by myself and the mechanic.  Looking back I can't believe how lucky we were.  This year I budgeted to keep some staff on week past closing and combined with the good weather we are ahead of normal...a good place to be.

All the greens were aerated with the deep tine aerator ( go here for past information) as usual but this time wasn't as nice as past times since most of the greens have at least 50% less root mass compared to other years so the turf was pulled up more than usual.  I sort have a theory on why there is less root mass and I'll cover that later.

With the exception of #6 fairway, all the fairways were sprayed this week.  Frosty morning meant I couldn't start spraying until noon but having staff to clean leaves and needles ahead of sprayer meant I could easily put down two tanks a day.  That may not seem like much but you have to calculate mixing, applying, travel time, and clean up as part of those days so it can take up to 1.5 hours/tank depending mostly on travel time.  The greens need one more and may get another treatment depending on weather and then they will have their sprays.

All that is left is putting out the tarps and getting up the elk "fences".  Actually I am too late with respect to the elk......

Elk Tracks on #4 Green

Apologies and Brief Review

Obviously there has been no posts for months.  Other aspects have cut into the commitment it takes to update information about the "goings on" at KGC.  I'll quickly blow through what happened over the past few weeks.

The last post about the pine beetle was really the only big news or out of the ordinary news during the latter part of the season.  We found a couple more trees but their removal won't have a very big impact.  We sort of experimented with transplanting some small trees (tamaracks) this year and those appeared to have survived.  Bolstered a little bit by that very small victory we prepared some more small trees this fall for transplant next spring. 

The river worked out.  We had to do our usual grunt work making weirs and dams but really only around 70 man hours and one day with a backhoe and a vacuum truck kept at least one pump working (and the horrible wet weather in September helped out - irrigation wise, that is).  A big percentage of that 70 hours was spent cleaning out the sand from inside the wet well.  I believe the wear caused by the sand is our bigger problem in the long run and we need to find ways to mitigate it.

This was one of those years where my 9 old could have grown grass for you to play on.  We had a hard time keeping up with all the grass.  What makes that interesting is when you compare conditions to last year.  In 2012 the wet June carried us for a long time until about early August which was when the cracks started to show and the turf began burning out and things started looking haggard.  This year the weather helped conditions stay great all year.   Unfortunately, I know I will have an opportunity to lament about our 1980 irrigation system in the future but suffice to say that when there is no burned out areas between sprinklers improperly spaced at 110 feet (versus the specified maximum spacing of 90 feet) you know the weather is having an immensely positive impact on growing grass. 

With respect to the beetle infected trees we fell them once play was done and a work bee was organized to help clean up the branches.  Luckily we had the regular group of 25 or so members (who appear to make up the backbone of these events!) show up an clean all the debris left from falling the trees.  I am depending more on these types of work bees since they really help out and save money.  Keep next spring open!

There is more but I have all winter to cover other topics assuming there isn't a ton of powder days.