Thursday, August 15, 2013

Fairway bermuda eradication

With progress comes some pain from time to time.  The color of the turf is a brilliant green all over the property which is a little unusual for this time of the year.  I've just spent the past two days spraying some of the fairways with our bermuda eradication treatment.  The pretty green will fade in areas for a few weeks so we can begin the process over to remove the bermuda.  The plan is that the spray injures the bermuda if not kills it and the zoysia will then grown back up through and over the bermuda.  This is a slow process and will take a couple of years.  In areas of severe damage, we have gone in with zoysia sod and replaced these sections.

I've not sprayed our fairways to remove bermuda since the spring of 2011.  We were making nice progress for a couple years on holes 4, 7, 8, and 13 with spot spraying.  These four holes were are least contaminated holes.  High temperatures and drought conditions with very stressed zoysia turf last summer prevented applications last year. In the last day or so, I've spot sprayed almost 5 acres of material on holes 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 13, and 17.  I've also sprayed approaches on #1, 2, 6, 13, 17 and 18.  Over the next  7-10 days these patches will be evident from a yellow/reddening of the turf.  The zoysia will turn slightly off color but will rebound over the next few weeks.  The bermuda will continue to turn off color and its growth rate will be suppressed severely.  I plan to do a second application after the Echofest Member/Member Tournament which will set up the bermuda for some severe stress going into the fall and hopefully a death experience over the winter.  I tried not to spray areas that would require sodding zoysia but there is not guarantee of anything when you spray these materials.  The link below will take you back to past posts which explains the program in great detail.  As the zoysia/bermuda begins to show the effects of the material, I will make addtional posts with either pictures and or video to explain what is taking place with our turf.

    http://geccgcm.blogspot.com/search/label/Fairway%2Frough%20bermuda%20eradication%20program

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