Update on Greens Recovery

I wanted to give you an update since last week on the progress of our greens recovery. Our greens have been responding to the cooler night temperatures and the lower humidity of the last few days.

We will begun mowing our greens daily except for a few of the weaker greens. Greens 3, 6, 8 9, and 11 are a little further behind the others in their recovery but they are improving. We continue to evaluate our height of cut as our turf strengthens and will begin the process of bringing height down as we think the turf can handle the lowered height. Light topdressing will begin next week on the healthiest greens with some hand topdressing of our weakest greens in spots.

We will use a combination of seeding and sod plugs from our bentgrass nursery to improve the damaged spots on our greens and collars. Topdressing will be utilized to help improve ball roll and provide protection for the plants trying to fill back into the weakened areas. As the greens continue to strengthen, we will begin to utilize growth regulator products which will improve ball roll and start the process of antagonizing the poa annua and slowly reducing its dominance of our green’s turf.

The seeding process will include using our small walk behind slit seeder on most of our collar areas to improve the overall bentgrass population. This is a normal late summer/fall maintenance practice. Smaller areas will be scratched with a weed weasel as seen on TV which lightly scratches the surface providing for a safe haven for the seed. We will also utilize our Toro walking aerator with the small rescue tines which indent slightly into the green surface providing a small protective reservoir for seed to germinate. Seeding can be problematic because of the maintenance practices that take place on a daily basis and the daily golf play. Young plants have little if any root systems and can be pulled out of the ground by a mower. They are also very sensitive to moisture stress. As our greens continue to improve, we will be reducing moisture to improve the health of our greens and improve ball roll. The surface of the greens are naturally drier in the late summer and early fall because of lower humidity and the mature plants are able to survive longer periods without moisture because of the cooler temperatures. This helps to firm up green surfaces but it does place the new seedling in a drought stress situation. Our solution is to reduce overhead watering and increase light frequent hose syringing to keep the soil slightly moist on top for the seedling but not too wet so that we can improve playability. The seed will begin germination and growing after 7-10 days of being sown and will mature over the rest of the fall season.