Bermuda eradication work is going well with our first spray that took place around July 23rd. Short video which stopped before I could complete my explanation(maybe my camera is telling me something). Larger Bermuda patches are pretty obvious from the red color that the Bermuda gives off as the chemical is taking effect. I was not trying to scare everyone off when I made the post regarding take your pictures now. I just knew that areas of the course would not look quite as green as they did but they still look pretty good when you see the effects the chemicals are making on the Bermuda. It will take more applications to get a pretty solid kill. The overwintering spray has a tendency to be the most effective.
I will make another application in the next couple of weeks and will complete the third application toward the end of September which will help us considerably for next season. Some of the Bermuda areas that are intermingled in the Zoysia are not as easy to locate but their are plenty of areas like this that we need to continue to hammer with these products to help push them out completely.
We do have some pretty serious issues with contamination in our intermediates in which some areas have little or no Zoysia. The left side of 10, right side of 5 and a few other areas where the Bermuda has moved from the rough into the fairway. This is coincidentally the areas which are sometimes shaded as well which discourages Zoysia and encourages Bermuda. Some of these areas will be treated with RoundUp and killed off completely and then sodded. I might do a couple of these just before dormancy this fall and then replace them in the spring with new sod. Looks like it is dead anyway when it goes into dormancy and will help us next spring get an early jump on sodding.
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=CqIuKoZvhi8
On Tuesday, E&E Enterprises whom we contract with to vent our greens with the Hydroject machines arrived on property and completed our 100K sq/ft of greens in about 4 hours. A very short video of a couple seconds posted below. Did not realize I had my camera set on time lapse at the time and they were gone when I decided to put the video on YouTube.
As usual, 4-5" in depth improving our greens in a number of ways with gas exchange, oxygen in, carbon dioxide that builds in soil out. Improved rooting with channels formed that are full of oxygen. We do not get a lot of new roots this time of year due to high soil temperatures, just checked this afternoon and at 2" of depth about 90 degrees. Also improves infiltration of water and drying of areas with excessive water.
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=4j1L_PIcWBU
Deep-tine aerated our Zoysia tees last week with an 1/2" tine to a depth of 4-5". As you know, we core aerated a couple of weeks ago so a 2nd aeration in less than a month. This should improve drainage on some tees which have large amounts of water running over them because they are at ground level and water drains across the tee. We hope to rebuild a number of these tees over the next few years to improve playability and turf quality.
Intend to get the rest of the bare spots in fairway areas covered with Zoysia in the next few days. We will also go after a few cool season rough spots near greens and bunkers with some fescue if we don't get too warm to start improving areas for the late summer and fall. I Intend to take our green height back to our normal height of cut for the weekend since our weather appears to be moderating. That will result in an actual height lowered by the thickness of 1 piece of standard copy paper.
Hope to see you out on the course over the next few weeks.
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