Drilling Fescue-Bluegrass mix into rough/Bermuda eradication in fairways

The staff over the next few days will be using a slit seeder to incorporate a Fescue/Bluegrass mix into the rough.  We will be concentrating our efforts around green complexes and first cut rough areas that come into play.  Some of these areas will include the back green surrounds of #5,6,8,16 which have substantial amounts of bermuda.  Last season, in an effort to reduce costs during the bunker project, I did not sod the back sections of these green complexes.  The slit seeding of these areas will give these complexes a more attractive look and will make the turf type consistent throughout the entire complex.  We will be keeping a 7' intermediate cut around #8 and #16 because of the severity of the slope of the greens.  You should see germination of the seed within the next couple of weeks depending upon the amount of moisture that we receive.  It is rather difficult to fully irrigate these areas because 1/2 the moisture goes onto the fairways.  We attempt to keep the zoysia relatively dry during the fall.  Drier turf reduces the onset of Large patch in our Zoysia fairways.

Speaking of zoysia fairways, I sprayed 7.3 acres of fairways with our bermuda eradication product today.  That is about 25% of our fairway acreage.  This includes parts of holes 1-5, 7-8, 10, 13, and 15.  This product will severely injure the bermuda as it goes into dormancy and will delay it breaking dormancy next spring.  We will then go into some of these areas and make another application next spring.

Russ slit seeding into the area in front of #4 tee and #11 green surround.

Jason dragging the left side of #3.  The drag helps to smooth over the slit and places the seed in better contact with the soil which assists in germination.