Its been a while since I've made a blog post. I'm making daily posts regarding course opening, carts and practice range restrictions or lack thereof on social media. Allow me a few moments to expand upon the work we have completed this fall so far and what there is to come.
We attempted to delay any aeration of main playing sources until we've gotten through most of our calendar of events in September and October. We began the aeration work around our greens using a 1/2" coring tine after slit seeding fescue around the greens to improve our coverage of turf grass. Our process included slit seeding, then aerating, spreading seed with a rotary spreader and then dragging in the material to make good soil contact and mowing. We should get seed germinating in the areas over the next couple of weeks and will then mature in the spring. We plan on using our rough aerator that makes a little bit larger hole a further out on the green surrounds over the next week or two which will improve its overall health as well.
We will begin to use our pull behind rough aerator in our rough soon as time and weather permits. Cores or plugs are pulled and we use a metal drag to break them up. This assists in reducing compaction and helps with stimulating new growth in our rough plants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4cVFB2DlRQ
Greens aeration will begin on Monday, November 1st. Depending upon conditions for the first day, it might take us a 2nd day or so to finish up the last few greens. We will use our deep tine verti-drain aerator and go about 7-8" deep. The holes will be filled with sand and surfaces brushed to smooth them
out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ0xEew0b9I
Our warm season turf grass zoysia was fertilized with potassium in September to assist it with winter hardiness. It thickens the cell walls and improves water and energy uptake. As zoysia goes into dormancy, it is storing energy which assists it in fighting off excessive cold temperatures.
We applied fertilizer to our cool season rough grass in the past couple weeks which will assist in providing new energy for our turf. As temperatures begin to fall, it utilizes less energy and begins to store energy for the next season. Once cold temperatures arrive in late November and early December it goes into a form of dormancy even though it is fairly green. The stored energy then allows the plant to green up a little earlier than non-fertilized turf.
A couple of weeks ago, I asked our contracted tree expert Tim Gamma to come out on property and assist me in evaluating trees that have been damaged by the gall over the past year or two that should be removed. There are 35-40 trees that were identified for removal in which 21 are Pin Oaks. There are a few Ash, Siberian Elms and Maples in which some were damaged by this summer storms and or have been scheduled for removal over the past year which make up the total number of trees. Some of these trees will be removed completely by our staff but others will require assistance from our contractor. They will top them leaving a stub and we remove the large limbs that can't be chipped and the log. Our budget does not have the funds in it to remove all the trees. GM Tim Grossman and the Board are working through the finances to determine the number of trees we can remove with the available finances.
We made our last mowing early last week on our zoysia tees, approaches and fairways. They might grow slightly over the next week or two and will then go into dormancy as our temperatures get cold enough for frost. We have also made our large patch zoysia fungicide application over the past few weeks to reduce the effects of the disease. The fall application of the fungicide assists in reducing the severity of the disease in the spring but we also must make another application in the spring to keep the disease under complete control.
Thanks again to the Foundation for the recognition of the work accomplished over the years here at Glen Echo by our staff.
We've been attacking the first cut or two of Bermuda in our rough with herbicides to reduce its competitiveness over the last month or so. With this reduction means we will need to start some new seedlings of Fescue in areas where we have less than adequate cool season turf, thus its time to start drill seeding our rough. We will be drilling in high traffic rough areas around greens and fairways in an effort to get a stand of grass before winter sets in. It is difficult for young seedlings to make it in our environment with a great deal of shade, mowing/blowing equipment and cart traffic. Hopefully we will get the turf up and growing before the main onslaught of leaves start to fall. By then it will have been fertilized and we should be in good shape for next season. We hope to get this grass up and growing in 10 days or so and look forward to it competing with the Bermuda that survives the winter and from the various chemical treatments it has received. Video below explains our process.
The staff have spent the last couple weeks using our slit seeder to drill fescue into the rough and cool season green surround areas. Once the seeder went over the area, a metal mat was drug over the area to pull up the grass material that was cut and to place the seed in contact with the ground which improves germination. We purchased 2 tons of seed which is not a great deal if you consider we have about 80 acres of rough but we only seed in close rough areas or worn play areas.
Fertilizer has been applied to close rough this week. Some of the fertilizer will be utilized by the existing plants before they begin to shutdown in November. The new seedlings will also use the fertilizer as well. University research as well as our own actual experience has show greater benefit in applying fertilizer before the turf slows drastically.
Grass plants are like yours truly, when I eat normally, no extra brownies in the morning or over sized burgers at lunch, my bodies power plant is able to use the nutrition and does not store excess into fat. Plants are only capable of utilizing a certain amount of nutrition. Once they have enough food, it is then turned into storage which is important for the plant strengthening going into winter and for growing out next spring. Once the plant has stored all it can, excess fertilizer is not used and could go to waste Too much fertilizer is a waste of resources and can also contribute to negative effects on the environment. We are finding 30-40% reduction is fertilizer applications still gives us a healthy plant through next spring. The stored energy gives us great green up in the spring and gives us a more steady growth cycle in the spring.
The drag that was used to bring up thatch and leaf material that was brought up by the seeder.
The right bank behind #17 green with newly emerged seedlings. You can see the lines or slits where the seed was drilled into the soil.
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.
At the interface between the rough and zoysia intermediate at the beginning of our fairways, we have some thin and or bare areas that need attention. Some of the thinning has occured from our bermuda eradication program and some of the loss of turf is from wear and tear. We used our drill seeder over the past couple of days to get a head start on incorporating more turf type fescue into these areas. Our cool season surrounds have also taken a hit from disease, water managment, and bermuda encroachment. We also drilled some of these areas as well.
We plan to do some Tupersan applications around the greens, collars and approach areas where the bermuda has moved back into these areas. The Turpersan prunes the roots on the bermuda and does not allow it to tack down to the ground which is one of its key components for survival and spreading. Bermuda that is unable to tack down is usually susceptible to winter kill. We will also be doing some bermuda eradication spray on these areas in October after the fescue seed has been germinated and matured. This will also set back the bermuda and allow the cool season grass to take over and thrive until next summer. We will follow up with additional sprays in the spring to reduce the competiveness of the bermuda before the summer heat sets in.
No action shots of the drill seeder but here it is in the shop.
The bottom of 13 rough/fairway. Some of this area was damaged from standing water where the turf was litterally cooked after heavy rain left the turf in standing water.
The slits from the seeder are still slighly visible after the area is dragged with a mat to give the seed good contact with the soil.
The area will be fertilized with a starter fertilizer to help the seed germinate and begin to grow. Germinated plants should be coming up over the next couple of weeks.
In an effort to improve the turf in some of our rough areas, we are doing some drill-seeding into the weaker areas. Yesterday, Skip used our tractor and drill seeder to do areas in the trees lines which were less than adequately covered in turf. Some of these areas included under the trees between 1-18, 3-12, 4, 5, 7-8, 8-10 and along 16.
The seeder is actually up in the air in the picture below. We work in straight lines because of the blades and the damage that can occur if we turn with the machine on the ground. The seeder drills a line in the ground, seed is then dropped down a small chute and slides to the ground where it is compacted by the roller on the back of the machine and helps to press the seed so it comes in contact with the ground.
The blades below are in the front of the machine. They are pto driven which spins rather quickly as we move forward. This is what cuts into the ground. We set the depth to about 1/2" which gives the seed adequate depth to begin to germinate and will take root. There are blades every 2" which go across the front of the machine at a total width of 4'.
Below are the slits or lines in the turf that are made by the blades in the last photo. The turf seed will germinate in the lines and begin to grow. We attempt to seed at a specific rate to improve the overall turf coverage. Too many seedlings make for a weakened turf stand. Not enough seeds leads to less coverage in an area which can lead to less turf in a given area as well. There is some mortality in seeding of turf. Birds remove a small percentage of the seed. There are times when the seed does not fall directly into the slit in the ground. This can lead to poor soil contact and weakened rooting of the seedling.
The back of the machine is shown below. The tubes are where the seed moves down to the ground surface. As the machine rolls along the ground, there is a wheel which turns. The turning of this wheel moves a mechanism in the seed box which turns at the top of the tubes and forces seed to drop down the tubes to the ground. If the machine is not moving, seed is not being distributed. The roller or packer on the back of the machine will help press the seed into contact with the ground. We use a cart and drag mat to aid in this process which is of utmost importance. If the seed does not make good contact with the ground, it will have less of a chance to root and survive.
We intend to seed into some close fairway rough in the next 7-10 days. We just spayed our bermuda suppressant/eradication material in our rough to assist our cool season turf to expand its influence in our rough. Our hope is that this will weaken the bermuda as it begins to prepare for winter and it will be severely injury over the winter. An additional application made next spring should also suppress the material as well as it tries to grow from winter dormancy. The material that we sprayed requires that new seed either be far enough along to have been mowed once or twice or we delay seeding. I chose to delay seeding because the drill part of our seeding operation disturbs the bermuda grass and creates a pretty ugly scene for a couple of weeks. The weather this summer has been less stressful on our rough turf which reduces the amount of renovation needed for next season. We are placing about 1 ton of seed down to continue to increase our fescue turf in our close rough areas in hopes of replacing and or competing with the bermuda grass.
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