Thursday, June 19, 2014

Time for Primo

The summer season is upon us and our maintenance program is changing to adapt to the conditions. One of the things we will be doing following aerification and verticutting is applying a product called Primo. Primo works by slowing down the vertical growth of our grasses and encouraging lateral growth at the same time. In other words, it helps to reduce mowing frequency and increase the turf density. It will assist our fertilizers in helping to strengthen and fill in our tees, fairways, and approaches following aerification. One possible drawback to this application is that we may see slight bronzing, which is only temporary and will not damage any turf. As our grasses are entering the peak of the growing season, we begin to see an increase in grass clippings around the course. Primo will help to reduce these clippings, leaving cleaner playing surfaces and less cleanup work as we progress through the summer season.
Spraying 7 fairway
Tees and fairways were sprayed with the spray rig. The approaches will be sprayed by hand with a spray hawk for a more accurate application.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Round 2...

Our second wave of greens aerification is complete and we are still continuing the Graden and aerification process on our fairways. We also aerified the tees and approaches this time as opposed to only verticutting as we did last time. As I said earlier, these processes are a critical part of alleviating traffic stress and maintaining a proper thatch layer on our playing surfaces. Our greens are already healing over faster this time for a few different reasons. We were able to get a sufficient fertilizer application down following aerification while avoiding heavy flushing rains afterward.

Here is a look at the process...
First, the greens are verticut and the clippings are blown off before they are topdressed

Once the topdressing is applied, the greens are then aerified

After aerification, the cores are dragged, blown off and picked up. Each green is then brushed to incorporate the sand into the profile, rolled, fertilized, and watered. 

The approaches were also aerified, cleaned off, topdressed, and dragged

Here is a look at 2 fairway following the Graden process

We will be doing more verticutting and a few other cultural practices during this summer season to insure that our playing surfaces are stronger and will be ready for next upcoming season. However, none will be to the extent of the Graden process.