Cart traffic...

It's that time of year again... As temperatures rise and the dew points continue to climb, cool season turf begins to show signs of stress. The good news is that the days are getting shorter since we have passed the summer solstice!

There is no doubt about it, cart traffic is a contributing factor to stress on cool season turf. Notice the turf fifty yards past the sign where cart traffic is consistently restricted; it has one less variable compared to the rest of the turf.

Here is another example on one of the older fairways. The green line across the fairway looks like it was caused by cloud cover but in fact it is the line where carts exit the fairway.

With all of this in mind, there may be a few days over the next couple of months that carts will be restricted to path only to give the turf a break and allow some recovery.

Crabgrass!!!

The worst enemy of our sprig trials in various fairways has begun to rear its ugly head...

Crabgrass is beginning to invade some of the areas that were sprigged with bermudagrass a few weeks back. We will continue to monitor and treat chemically over the next few weeks to tip the scale back in favor of the young sprigs.

Disease monitoring...

We use dots of paint to measure whether a spot is growing and active. This area may be something as minor as stress from a muffler. We will monitor over the next few days to see if it is spreading.

Sprigging trials...

You will notice some shaggy looking areas on #8,9,&14 fairways.

We are doing some planting trials on those fairways using the same variety of bermudagrass that was used on #5 approach.

The grass was planted in one direction and then crimped again in another direction. Then those spots were rolled the following day to ensure good soil contact. You will remember that the approach on #5 was sodded; for bigger areas it is more cost effective to sprig.

We will adjust our pre emerge programs and fertility schedule for these areas over the next few months. Play should not be affected and is actually encouraged in these spots. Cart traffic and foot traffic will help with the real world trial.

Latitude bermudagrass...

The Latitude Bermudagrass that was sodded on the fifth approach seems to have survived the long, hard winter fairly well. I am impressed with the consistency of green up and the lack of any patch diseases. 

It could be that the plants are still young and spring dead spot has not been able to come in yet. Looking at the latest research from VA Tech, we will change up our fertility practices a bit along with some fall fungicide applications and see if we can keep it clean. Overall, not a bad playing surface for the first of May following such a tough winter!!!

High tide...

Even at high tide this morning, the lowest basin on #11 still has about five inches to spare.

As you can see the pond is also at the same level.

The drainage along Hingham Lane definitely relieved the pressure on the dirch running along the left of hole 11.  Barring any major flooding rain events we should be able to contain most rainfalls.

Sunlight!

Sunlight is an essential part of photosynthesis. Turfgrass needs at least eight hours of it throughout the day to survive and thrive in a golf course growing environment.

This picture was taken on #7 at 0845 on 21Apr2014. We are about eight weeks from the summer solstice so the hours of sun are only going to get better as time goes on throughout the summer. This is about the amount of shade that will be on this green eight weeks after the solstice putting us well into August. Selective tree removal around the green complex to allow better sunlight penetration is a large focus of our off season program. This green should show much improvement over last year due to this selective removal yet the play of the hole remains unchanged.