No Seed?

Typically, this is the time of year in which golf courses in our region of the state apply overseed for the coming winter months. This year will be a little different for us than years past because of the fact that we have new grasses on all of the playing surfaces. The benefit of overseed is that it provides color and helps to fill in bare areas that go dormant during winter months, however, it also introduces competition with the bermudagrass foundation. Because our grasses will not fully go dormant throughout the winter, they will still be growing and developing root systems, but at a much slower pace than during the summer months. The Celebration bermuda is a very high quality cultivar, and although the growth rates will slow down, its excellent cold tolerance will help to retain color and deter cold stress. Because our playing surfaces are all new, they will need the full benefits of the water and nutrients they will receive through fertilizer to continue to properly develop and to avoid thinning out because of competition from the seeded grasses as they move into the transitional period in the coming Spring. We will be doing a minimal amount of seeding to certain areas including the range tees, short range tee, par 3 tees, and chipping green area because of the fact that those areas take on more traffic and divots. So although the course may not have as much color as it would if we had seeded, the overall health and strength of our bermudagrass foundation will doubly benefit.

Topdressing the seed on 5 tee to insure good soil contact

Seeding 5 tee

Prevention is Key for Control of Annual Winter Weeds

We are quickly approaching that time of year when the climate change becomes optimal for the germination and emergence of winter weeds, especially annual bluegrass. You may have noticed that the fairways last week were a little softer than usual. This was due to the fact that we applied a pre-emergent herbicide to prevent seeds of any annual winter weeds from germinating. This herbicide works by creating a preventive barrier or film at the soil surface which stops these weed seeds from reaching maturity. The product is most effective if it is thoroughly and evenly dispersed along the soil surface, hence the need for extra irrigation cycles. This process will also take place in the coming weeks as we make the applications in the roughs to achieve effective weed control throughout the entire golf course.

The spray hawk was used on approaches around greens to get into tighter spaces

Spraying and watering #3

Watering in spray on #14

Future Success Through Sustainability

Things on the golf course are back to normal, and we hope everyone is enjoying the improved course thus far. One of the main goals of the renovation process was to make sure that we would be able to maintain our improved playing surfaces in the coming months and well into the future. We are very pleased with the outcome of our new greens, but must take this opportunity to remind everyone that they are still at a very young stage and still need to develop and mature. It is imperative to overall plant health as well as to the smoothness of the putting surface that we continue certain cultural practices in the future. We will continue the star tine process, as well as topdressing, which will work out the small imperfections as the greens continue to mature. We will be performing these tasks on Mondays so that we can avoid disrupting play throughout the week and on the weekends especially. We will do everything possible to make sure that the work we perform in order to protect and strengthen our greens is of minimal disturbance to the playing surface.
Again, we hope you are all enjoying our newly improved course and hope that you are looking forward to a great upcoming season.

 

 

Light topdressing on putting green at clubhouse