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.

It's been long time.

There hasn't been any new posts for a variety of reasons but the main one is that not much has been going on. The weather has put a damper on the play and some of our activities but it has made it easy to grow grass. I sort of feel guilty when all we have to do is mow. Heck, we haven't even had to water. It is getting so bad that the grass is starting to grow over our irrigation heads!

Starting this week things will change slightly since that is when we begin to aerate the greens. Last years spring aeration was fairly successful so we will try something along the same lines but with some changes (see July 8, 2010 for more info) . We weren't able to do the amount of aerating I was hoping last year so only using small 1/4" tines each time out would eventually catch up to us. We are going to try a combination of last springs and last falls aeration's which means just a few more big (3/8's) tines versus all little tines. As a demonstration we aerated the old putting green on Monday and saw positive results.

Putting Green Five Days
After Aeration

The decision on what combination of tines we use is based on the reasons why we are aerating and general health of the turf. As mentioned in older posts, this type of shallow aeration is mostly for thatch removal, compaction relief, and increased oxygen exchange in the upper root zone. I'll tell you a secret if you promise not to tell the other superintendents....most of our roots, if not all, are only in the top 2 - 3 inches of our greens. Pulling a core that is 5 to 6 inches deep just ends up puffing up the surface since there are no roots to hold down the turf at that depth. Unfortunately, it's sort of a chicken and egg argument: you won't have deeper roots if you don't give them somewhere to go and you can't pull a deep core unless there is a deep enough root mass. We could always pull a deep core and just deal with puffy greens but it my job to find a happy medium between beneficial maintenance practices and playability. By using a tighter spacing and removing more material we have been slowly increasing root mass in the top couple inches (I make that bold statement based not on any hard empirical data but more on off-hand observations such as general firmness, slightly longer times between watering, and visual observation of root mass). Ultimately, with the help of deep tine aeration and slowly increasing the depth at which we pull a core I hope to increase root depth. However, with a mostly Poa annua grass and suspect irrigation coverage I'm sometimes just happy to see the mowers getting any grass at all!

Flower and Fusarium

Once the rain quit and the sun came out there was a fairly showy flower display throughout the entire course. I'll guess most everybody knows what is what but here is a few pictures of the most obvious flowers out now.

Saskatoon Bush

Saskatoon's are all over especially on the outside borders of the course. Luckily most people from B.C. think they are too dry (?) but for a stubble jumper such as myself they are a great treat.

Oregon Grape.

This bush is all over in the deep rough. Apparently you can make a jelly out of the berries? I guess it might be worth a try just make sure to stay away from those dry, icky saskatoon berries.

Triple Combo

A combination chokecherry, trembling aspen and another yucky saskatoon bush

Balsamroot

Everyone has seen these on the south facing dry slopes at the golf course. I guess the good news is you can eat the leaves and even use them for smokin'. Nice option instead of eating saskatoon berries which, as everyone knows, are no good.

Oh yeah, and don't forget the poa flower. Obviously completely different from normal flowers the type of infloresence on the poa is what makes the fairways appear white and can affect ball roll on some of greens (see kimberleygolfclub.blogspot.com/2010/06/poa-in-full-flower.html for more information)

As nice as the wet and somewhat cool weather has been for the native plants blossom production it has been equally nasty for disease development. All greens, some worse than others, have small round, reddish brown spots which are the symptoms of a fungal infection known as Microdochium (or old school punks such as myself call it Fusarium) patch. Interestingly enough it is the same pathogen that causes pink snow mould with the only difference between the two occurrences is the type of weather. As an overwintering disease it can cause significant damage and it is one of the reasons we have to treat the turf to help ensure there is limited damage in the spring. As a spring/early summer disease it is usually not as severe and sometimes all that is needed is a change in the weather, a little nutrition and the turf can take care of itself. This may not be one of those times since it appears we are headed back into a damp cool trend weather wise. (see kimberleygolfclub.blogspot.com/2010/05/week-of-may-23.html for more of the same regarding spring disease).

Small Fusarium Spots

Large Fusarium Spots

Review of Last Winters Disease Control

Now that we are through the May long weekend it is the unofficial beginning of summer golf and the supposed end of turf recuperative operations. As a result, I thought I would touch on how we fared this past winter. Its seems sorta a mute point being that we are well into golf season but there may be some things people aren't aware of.

Weather

If you've talked to me anytime this spring about how the course over wintered you've heard me comment on how the weather conditions last fall and winter had a big impact on spring conditions. Last fall was huge with respect to the turf achieving proper dormancy: dry, gradual but consistent temperature drop, and lots of light. A lot of the problems in the spring of 2010 related to the early and extremely cold temperatures in the fall of 2009 when the turf wasn't ready for it. Another plus was the fact that the snow pack this year was dry and deep. We rode out the one rain/thaw event in January with no ice. Even if any water reached the green surfaces I doubt it would have caused problems since for most of season the ground was unfrozen and water would have been able to soak in. Sometimes unfrozen ground, especially when it is wet and the grass is too lush, can exacerbate snow mould occurrences; however, this time out that was not the case. The more I think about it the more I think the soil temperature and soil moisture had an impact on spring conditions.

Fall Fungicide Applications

Treated Area in the Picture Foreground

Untreated Area Between White and Red Markers

This was the last year we were able to use quintozene (see kimberleygolfclub.blogspot.com/search?q=pmra for back ground) for winter disease control. We've messed around with different products on the greens over the past two years and I am comfortable with what we now use to treat the greens. Treating fairways for snow mould is our biggest cost when it comes to disease control. The alternative products available for 2011 are no where near as cost effective as quintozene. For the winter of 2010 we compared the efficacy of two different sprays against quintozene and, at least for this winter, we had good results.

Kimberley "Snow Mould Trials"

Far from scientific but hopefully some sort of indicator. You may have to double click on the picture to get a better view but this picture shows a fairway split longitudinally into three sections. In the centre of the picture between the rows of yellow pin flags is the quintozene spray. On either side is the two sprays we compared to quintozene. We did this comparisons at select spots on different fairways throughout the golf course with similar results. What that means for the future is had to say since, as previously mentioned, the weather had such a positive impact on spring conditions. The one comment that can be said with a large degree on confidence is the fact that the two alternative sprays we compared to quintozene were twice the price so if we want to continue some level of snow mould control the cost will go up. This winter we'll mess around some more but I think it will take a few winters before I'll have the same level of confidence with the quintozene alternatives.

River Update

I'm always amazed at the how the St. Mary river level can change from day to day. I stuck this video in here in an effort to show how fast and deep the river is but the impact is minimal unless you're familiar with the golf course intake. Obviously, water is not a problem but what a big and dirty run off can do is plug the intake with silt and clay making is harder to get necessary volumes later on despite there being lots of water in the river. As usual, it is a wait and see thing.