Needle tine venting, Fairway Aeration, Bermuda Eradication, Green Surround Renovation, and Fathers

Happy Father's Day. My Dad has been gone for 28 years now. A great deal of life has occurred since he went to be with our Lord. Follow the best I can with the lessons he taught me daily on how to live a full life. Sharing your time and treasure to lift up people was one trait he shared regularly. The last day of his life he spent a day in a small town trying to build a new Kiwanis Club that would share in the giving he believed in so much. Its an honor to be your son!

A busy couple of months on the golf course as we barge head first into summer. Allow me a few moments to summarize our work.

Our new zoysia tee and surround areas are trying to establish themselves and mature. Some a little better than others but we moved into some warm weather conditions that will help push it along. Teeing ground turf will be a little slower to respond because of its concentrated wear from teeing it up but we will continue to encourage its maturity. Will begin some sand topdressing to help smooth out the surfaces and help them fill in.

We sprayed the weed contamination on the surround on 5 and 6 where the turf is established. We also sprayed some bermuda encroachment in these areas as well. Speaking of bermuda eradication, we will begin our fairway applications in the next few days as weather allows. Please see the video below for further explanation.

6 Green surround continues to improve. Weed control applied and we've opened the right side bunkers for play.

Fairways and tees were aerated last. We still have a few tees left including the ranges, the approaches and close green surround zoysia areas. We will do this work as weather and time allows over the next week or two.

We also Vented the greens using a very thin 5/16 needle tine. We also double topdressed the greens over a 5 day period last week.

Why vent the greens? You just aerated them at the end of March twice. Venting is a process that is used because it reduces surface disturbance but improves performance of our root growing area in the plants. 

1. It improves gas exchange. Oxygen in and carbon dioxide out which can build up over time in the root zone.
2. Allows water to penetrate in hard to wet areas and can dry wet areas more quickly with air entering the subsurface.
3. The surface closes rather quickly but the small channels into the green surface going down 4-5" allow for roots to improve and thrive. Research has shown that these small pathways can be effective up to 3 weeks.
4. The lack of basic infrastructure in our greens(no drainage systems) places puts us at a disadvantage when it comes to dealing with adverse conditions including high heat and heavy moisture. This regular program allows our greens to combat some of the problems we face.
5. As you will see in the video below, there are 48 venting tines on the machine. Our greens average about 5,000 sq ft. Thats about 145,000 vents into each green assisting approximately 142,000,000 million bent grass and poa plants to survive. Approximately 1,500 plants per sq foot.

We have not been walking mowing our greens but plan on getting that started this week. We have 3 new staff members for the summer who we will begin to train along with our experienced group to incorporate this into our program for the summer to improve green conditioning.

Thanks for your time and I will try to get back to posting some additional work on the blog in the upcoming weeks ahead.

  

Grounds Work, Here Comes Spring

Greens staff, small and mighty have been pretty busy over the last few weeks with some inside work challenging them along with some work on the course. It had been decided to redo the lower level lockers in the Ladies Locker Room by painting the outsides of each locker and removing all layers of paint off of the doors including the inside which was severely peeling. We first thought we could sand blast the lockers ourselves but after the 1st 20 locker doors took almost a week to complete we gave up Sand and dust was covering almost everything in the maintenance building as well so decided to find a company to do the paint removal of the remaining 80 doors. Some examples of the work are below.

Finished Product

We then started sanding some of the rougher areas on the main parts of the lockers that we did not remove and then started hanging the doors and painting over the last couple of weeks. Some of the lockers had to have their locks changed due to back up keys not being available. The staff have a majority of the work completed in the main locker area and are now trying to finish in the small room off of the pool hall.

FAIRWAY DORMANT HERBICIDE APPLICATIONS
Work outside has been ongoing with a number of projects taking place. During the end of January or early February, most staff in the St. Louis area spray RoundUp (a non selective herbicide which kills poa annua, knot-weed) and pre-emergent (Crabgrass and Goose grass control Herbicide) that prevents these weeds from growing. Areas sprayed include our zoysia grass fairways, tees and specific green surrounds like # 1, #2, #3. You have to spray these when the turf is dormant so you don't damage green actively growing turf with Round Up which can injure green or actively growing turf.

Poa beginning to change colors and die on #10

How do these products work? Its interesting how Poa will take in the chemical on warmer and sunny days in February. There are additives within Round-Up that allows the chemical to stick on the plant and also enter the plant which are key factors for us during the winter season. The Crabgrass product attaches itself to the soil, it is very non-soluble and will stay into the soil for months creating a barrier and or preventing the full germination of the weed seedlings. Once the turf becomes active and growing, the combination of the initial control and the overall thickness and strength of the Zoysia grass which helps to shade and reduces competition of the weed plants to germinate further.

GREENS AERATION
Greens have been mowed at our near regular season height as growth occurs. We will be aerating on March 19th using the process called Dry-Ject. This is contracted out but heavily depends upon the  involvement of our staff. As the 2 units go across each green, our staff must dump 5 gallon buckets full of sand into the holding container. The sand is incorporated into the green with a 3000 psi stream of water that injects it up to 5" into the green profile. Light brushing and rolling afterward and the greens are then ready to grow in and heal over the next few days. We are evaluating if we will do a deep-tine aeration after the other process is completed. Normally we do this as well.

SCIENCE GROWING DEGREE MODELS FOR CHEMICAL CONTROL OF PESTS
Over the years, we use a scientific temperature models(Growing Degree Days GDD) to help us determine applications that we use to reduce the amount of poa annua seed heads that germinate which can effect ball roll out both in length and smoothness. These models can be used as well with insect control products, fungicide applications, and other herbicide products. The models have early, target and over for application rates based upon a accumulation of growing degree days. These are guidelines for us to follow, with some products or applications they work well but with other products its problematic at best. Poa annua seed head applications are one of those problematic models. Last year's model had us spraying around February 24th and 2016 had us spraying around March 8th based on the models. This year the models are trending for an application about now which is March 12th. These models assist us in hopefully getting maximum efficacy(desired intended result) with the products we use.

The staff is in the process of getting course amenities out such as ball washers, benches, trash cans and etc as we move toward more active golfing weather. Water coolers will be placed on holes this next week. Clean up of gumballs, leaves and other things are happening as well including some dead tree removals as staffing levels increase.

#9/GLEN ECHO PARK STORM WATER DRAINAGE WORK BY MSD
Also, a contractor is working on new storm drainage from Glen Echo Park which will drain water into 9 lake from the subdivision. This work is being completed in a MSD project to reduce the amount of storm water that enters the sanitary sewer system flooding areas down stream in the  Wilson Creek area in U-City.  Some of have you have witnessed water pouring out sewer lids on our property which runs along the lake system at Glen Echo. The contractor is responsible for doing all the work and clean up in the area when finished. We will capping off our irrigation in that area which is rarely used.  This work should be completed over the next few weeks.

TEE RENOVATION
We have a tee project planned for the end of March/first of April where we will rebuild the 5th main tee and will be leveling and grassing the left tee on 14 with Zoysia. This effort will include stripping the old grass from the tee. A contractor will till the tees and then level them for surface drainage using a Laser-Leveling tractor and grading machine. The staff will then grass tees with zoysia. Hopefully, the tees will be open for play around May 1st or so depending upon weather. Pictures forthcoming as the work begins.

Until next time, hopefully will see you out on the course!!

Time to Catch Up

I apologize for little activity on the blog lately. Time to catch up.  Course has held up well this fall. A little bit of rain has been helpful for the seed that was drilled in during late September and early October.

Frost is predicted over the next couple of days. What does that mean? Course will remain closed until frost has lifted from playing areas. We of course are most concerned about greens so this means the practice green and practice facilities are closed until frost has lifted off of those surfaces. What can frost do? Watch the following video from the USGA, they explain it perfectly. The frost delays are normally shorter in length this time of year since the ground temperatures are still elevated. As temperatures cool, the delays increase in length. Factors that affect delays include cloud cover and wind speed as the sun comes up. Remember, the last thing we want is to delay golfers from getting out on the course but our goal is not do damage to the turf that could create issues going into winter or coming out of winter into spring.




Fall aeration is planned on Monday 10/30 with probably 12-14 greens getting completed we hope. We will get the others completed over the next couple of days trying to finish before early bird players catch up to us. We intend to do a deep solid tine aeration, about 8-9" deep. We will fill the holes with sand which will assist the holes in healing and will improve ball roll out.  Greens should be pretty good to go as the week goes by. In the video it illustrates coring, pulling a core out of the green about 2-3" deep. Our process will not involve pulling out a core but placing a deep 1/2" tine into the green about 8". These deep holes penetrate into our soil layer which is about 5" below the surface of the greens and assists with root growth and moisture penetration. I'll explain more next week after our process is completed.






Staff has been busy removing part of the ornamental planting along the east side of 9 lake over the last few weeks. With the addition of plantings around the clubhouse and pro shop, our horticulturist Becky has just too much for one person to manage. This bed was going to need a complete overhaul but I thought the best way to handle it was to put it back to turf grass. We had a difficult time making the steep sloped bank look good in the first place. I think next season along the turf to grow a bit along the steep side of the bank will look pretty good in place of an out of control planting bed.

Lake bank sodded and seeded along 9. Saved some money and decided to seed the top part. Area next to it is bermuda and will over run the seeded area next summer. Why waste money on something that won't be there for long.

This is our practice green collar that was sprayed with a product called Pylex used at a rate of 1/2 oz per acre. We've made another application since this photo and hopefully will remove some of this pesky grass out of our collars.

Picture above is a fairy ring on #10 fairway. We've had these from time to time on our fairways but not to the size and killing rings that we have been experiencing in the last year or so. We are looking at  a couple of different potential treatments next season. First is possibly changing to an organic fertilizer which reduces thatch and improves the microbial population that are antagonistic to the fairy ring organism. 2nd would be a fungicide application. I like improving soil health through the organic fertilizer option.

We've had a little bit of Large Patch on Zoysia break out a couple of weeks ago. Largest spots were up toward 13 green. We did some spot spraying with a fungicide to help knock it down. The worst time of the year is spring for this disease. The spot spraying this fall will help reduce some of the activity next spring but we will still spray some of our areas where the disease occurs on a yearly basis. The organic fertilizer option could help to alleviate this disease but it takes a couple of years to throw the soil microbe population to the good guy side. Organic does cost more but in the end does it really when you have to keep spraying fungicides on a regular basis?

MSD is doing some storm drainage work in the subdivision next to us in Glen Echo Park to reduce storm water getting into the sanitary sewer line that runs through our course along the lake system. The excessive loading of the sanitary sewer creates issues along Wilson Street in U-City which has been on the news many times in the past from flooding.  Part of the work will be some repairs and storm drainage being improved between the property line fence on 9 and the lake. This work will start in the beginning of winter and will be completed before the golf season next spring. Outside contractors through MSD will be completing the work. Some large storm water lines will be installed into our property and a open grass basin will lead water into another pipe that will go into our 9 lake. Our staff will be removing irrigation lines that will have to be dug up and replaced once the project is completed. The club has been reimbursed for work our staff will have to do for this project.

Tee Weed Control

We sprayed about 1 acres worth of Zoysia tees with a material that has turned them off color as illustrated in the pictures below. I've also attached a blog post from 2014 where we spot sprayed tees and you can see the off-color tinge in the back of the blue tee on #1. Since 2014, the weed that we are trying to control 'Kylinga' has spread to many of our tees. We are using a combination product which assists us with crabgrass control and will give us control on the Kylinga. We will have to spray the product again in 30 days or so to get any additional or new plants as they emerge. Other courses have had excellent success with this product. The yellowing will dissipate in about 7-10 days.

Blue tee on 1

Red Tee on 10

Below is the link to the blog in 2014 which illustrates the off color spot spray that we did.

http://geccgcm.blogspot.com/2014/05/weed-control.html

Turf Rising Means Poa Annua Is Waking Quickly

Yes, our turf is rising from it's winter slumber, especially our poa annua. We have a variety on our practice green that wakes up a bit early. I think it awakens early because of a micro climate created by the large parking lot and roadway which is next to the green. The black asphalt absorbs heat which is then transferred onto the green artificially inflating its temperature.  It is also orientated toward the west which gives it a good sun field most of the day.

Interesting note, I just went out and took some soil temperatures of our greens at a 2" depth, 1:15 p.m. Practice green was 54 degrees, #11 which faces to east was 50 in the front but only 43 in the back where it is shaded by the large Pin Oak. 13 green which is facubg west was 51 degrees.

At the tip of the tee is a seed head that has already developed on the practice green. 

Each season, we begin to count growing degree days (average heat accumulation) to determine when to apply specific products to prevent or reduce the effects of weeds, insects and fungus. Yes, scientific models are developed to help us to predict when to apply these products making them more effective. Poa annua seed head development, crabgrass control, broad leaf weeds, beetles and other pests are treated from these various models.

The model we use for poa annua seed head development is the 32 degree model.

Allow me a moment to explain how this model works. The high temp for Friday March 4th was 43. The low was 37 giving us an average of 40. We then subtract the 32 degree base number from the avg. temp for the day which was 40 giving us 8 growing degree days. We then accumulate the days totals until they begin to get near the target number that has been developed over the years by researchers as well as practical experience we have seen on our course.

We use GDD Tracker from Michigan State University. As you can see by the map, we are getting close into the target time for applying the product.

We utilize 2 growth regulators that work in combination to reduce the impacts of seed heads. The predicted outcome is about 50% control which does not seem very good but if we used no control measures, you would come to appreciate at least 50% control. 

We attempt to apply our product when we are trending toward 300 growing degree days. 

Right now we are at 221(we were at 8 growing degree days last year on this date). This week's warm up and rains should shoot us well past the 300 target mark before the end of the week. 

So what does this mean, yes I am either spraying later this afternoon or Sunday morning with rain predictions for most of this upcoming week. We sprayed last year around March 20th or so. We should go past that growing degree number by Thursday of this week. 

What does this mean for the season. Right now we are accumulating heat days about 2 weeks ahead of last year. Will it last? I don't know but we are trending for an earlier season so we will keep our fingers crossed. The weather does have a tendency to average itself out. Of course if we continue this warming trend, that creates tremendous pressure on our staff because everything is sped up, staff are not in place and those problems that come along with too much work and not enough time. Also, applications and sprays get pushed very close together which can create problems for us. Some of our chemicals don't play well together if they are sprayed to closely to one another.

Greens aeration is scheduled for March 21st pulling cores and March 28 contracting a new service called Dryject. More information on this over the next couple of weeks.

Bermuda Eradication/Expanded To Rough(As you have seen if you've played the course over the holiday)

I mentioned in video posts last week that we were expanding our Bermuda Eradication work to the rough with some newer herbicide chemistry called Pylex. Some might question why would you ugly up areas of the golf course like we have when the course was near perfect.

• First off, the club spent 1/4 million dollars to install Zoysia 20 years ago. We need to protect that investment. 

• We've spent well over $10k over the last few years spraying fairways, adding Zoysia and the labor required to install the new sod.

• The efforts on our fairways must extend into our first cut of rough because Bermuda wants to move into areas of least resistance. It will continue to try to push into fairways. We must push it back or at least keep it at bay. There is probably one grass more aggressive than Bermuda and its poa annua which is most adapted in shade.

• Bermuda grass is subjected to winter kill in our area about every 5 years or so. This damage leads to delayed green up of our fairways. Reduction of Bermuda in our first cut of rough is also important because of the difficulty in playing out of this grass in the late summer. The less Bermuda, the better playability and for our members and guests.

The last week of August I sprayed varied rates of a product called Pylex from BASF. The rates were from .25 oz/acre on bent grass collars/approaches to 1.5 oz/acre to our main rough. I used our large area spray unit on these areas to insure proper calibration and application. The white color of the leaves is caused by the disruption of chlorophyll production in the plant which gives the plant its green color. It has less activity on cool season grass but there is some activity. Also the secondary herbicide I used also has activity on the cool season. 

Parts of collars on 3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,13,18 were sprayed. 

Rough was sprayed on 1,2,3,4,10,16-18. Bunkers/Green surrounds were sprayed on parts 4,5,7,9,10,11,12,13, and 18. 

This chemistry has serious activity on Zoysia as well which is a warm season grass. Greens collars such as 1-3 will require backpack applications in the next few days because of close proximity of Zoysia directly off the green. The rough was sprayed with an additional herbicide called Turflon which can reduce the amount of white discoloration caused by Pylex but it does have additional activity on the Bermuda and will turn it red. I've sprayed 6 acres of first cut rough and about 1 acre of collars, tees, and green surrounds. 

The rough areas I intend to drill seed Turf Type Fescue into these areas in the next couple of weeks to encourage additional cool season grass and discourage the Bermuda. I will expand the applications to additional rough in the next week to 10 days as well as other green surrounds. We do not have an unlimited supply of this material so don't fear, I will not spray the total course with this material.

This is an area near the dogleg of #1. This was a much lighter rate of Pylex that was applied without the Turflon added. Its having an effect but a slow one at that. You can see the Bermuda beginning to turn white.

This is an area on the right of #1 where I usually dilute and spray extra product out of my tank. You can see the green strip of no activity where I skipped an area in the rough. The cool season rough is tolerant of the spray but the mid-90 temperatures of this week has made its activity on the cool season turf a little more pronounced.

This is the area off the tee on 16 on the left. This is a 1/2  rate of Turflon. With warmer temperatures predicted, I decided to cut the rate in 1/2. More activity on the cool season grass than I wanted but it should calm down over the next few days with rain and cooler temperatures.

This is activity on the 2nd tee on some crabgrass which is cut at 6/10" about twice as tall as our collars. Pylex has activity on multiple grassy and broad leaf weeds which is an added benefit.

Goose grass on 2 tee. Great activity on goose grass.

This is the back of 5 green. The red is Bermuda grass. Most of the white on the right side is activity on the Fescue around this green but I expect this to come out in the next week or so.

This is activity on the right rough on the tennis court side of 18 near the right bunker. It has smacked the Bermuda in the mouth!

This is activity around the right bunker. This was sprayed without the Turflon material.

This is behind 18 green where we have some Bermuda as well.

Part of our Fairway eradication has involved sodding as well. This is over the hill on 10 about 125 yards from the green. Guys removing sod on Thursday and installing new.

In the same area installing new sod.

Removing old spots.

Additional spots waiting for more sod on Friday.

Repaired areas beginning the healing process. Did not remove every little spot of dead Bermuda. Expect the Zoysia to fill in the smaller areas by next season. If we spray and kill more Bermuda next to these areas and larger patches are showing, we will cut them out next season. 180 yards of new Zoysia in this area. 360 total yards laid this week. Well over 20 pallets of sod plus some removed from our nursery as well this season to repair treated and or winter killed Bermuda.

Dormant Fairway Pre-emergent/Poa Annua Spray

Our winter pre-emergent/winter weed application is taking place this week.  You will notice a little dye on fairways marking these areas. We will be spraying the warm season tees next week and doing some touch up around greens.

Normally the app is done in February but no snowfall and moderating temperatures pushed our decision a little early. You never know when a big snowfall might come and push the application late into winter. We are using a generic glyphosate product called Prosecutor Pro.  The glyphosate kills poa annua that has emerged since last fall.  Poa has become active when temperatures for a few days in a row go into the upper 40's-50's. The effects on the poa will become more visible in about 2-3 weeks if temperatures stay moderate. The plant begins to yellow and then bronze and dies.

The pre-emergent is called Ronstar(Oxidiazon) which is the best product to use on warm season fairways. It protects our turf from crabgrass/goose grass outbreaks. It is pricier than other products that we use on our rough but it does the least harm to rooting and is the best goose grass control product. Our fairways are probably the next most important area of the course besides greens so the extra expense.

We have sprayed and used granular product in our rough from year to year depending upon our work schedule. Prodiamine is the chemical name of the product that we use and probably most of the lawns are treated with in St. Louis.  We use this around our tees, greens, a lap or two around the rough and in our club lawn/highly visible areas of the club. There are areas that are more out of play that we do not treat because they are out of sight/mind and not necessary to be completely clean. Wall to wall applications are not environmentally nor are they fiscally responsible to be applied.

Our total acreage sprayed is a little over 25 acres plus a couple of acres of tees and warm season surround areas.

Yours truly spraying 2 fairway on Wednesday.

Weed control

We do not make an attempt to kill every weed on property.  Our efforts are to concentrate on the main areas of the course, greens, tees, fairways and first cut of  rough.  Over the last couple of days, I've sprayed a couple of tanks of product to reduce some of the weed populations on our fairways and tees.

I spot sprayed a 7 acre tank mix of broadleaf weed killer on our fairways, some tees and rough.  I spot sprayed mostly knotweed but did include white clover that is popping up in various areas as well.  I also sprayed some of the rough as well.  Seeds from these weeds can be spread to other areas of the course so it is important to knock down areas that have higher populations of weeds so that we don't seed clean areas of turf.

If you played yesterday or over the next couple of days, you will notice some block patterns of dye on the course covering some sections of fairways and in some cases a complete tee.  We are spraying for a weed called Green Kyllinga.  Click on the link for more details.  We have a number of tees which are covered with this weed.  I spot sprayed about 25,000 sq ft of fairways and tees with a product that should knock down the weed but will also require a follow up application.

Blue tee #1.  Red tee and white tee are covered with this weed.  

18 fairway and a spot covered with Kyllinga.  It can take over an area if not treated and grows about twice as fast as the turf.  

Area on 18 fairway that literally looks like we planted the weed.

Bermuda grass encroachment on collars

With rain coming in later today, I came into work this morning and sprayed our collars and edges of greens that are contaminated with Bermuda grass.  The plants just emerged this week and protocol for Tupersan, the product we used says to spray at first emergence and then follow up every 4-6 weeks.  It also needs to be watered in within 3 days to activate it in the soil. 

I had sprayed a preventative application earlier in the week of a product that protects the greens from some summer diseases and needed a few days between applications so the bentgrass/poa annua would not be injured.  The Bermuda product inhibits the photosynthesis of the Bermuda grass and it will slowly begin to die.  Of course as you know, Bermuda is a horrific weed.  Its root system is fairly deep into the ground and braches out in many directions this the need for follow up applications.  One of the unique benefits of Tupersan is that seeding can take place right behind an application.  It is the only pre-emeregent product that is on the market that allows seeding. 

You can see the Bermuda in this picture off the back of 5 green collar with the long stolons that attach themselves to the soil surface. We are trying to injure it at emergence since it is weaker and more vulnerable and the chemical can create significant injury.  Follow up treatments will insure that plants trying to creep into the area are kept out of the collars and greens.

Long Range Tee

As you might have noticed, we are not on the grass on the long range.  I've been over seeding with ryegrass the east 1/2 of the tee over the last couple of years to get our weed population under control, namely poa annua and crabgrass.  With the dry fall and very cold winter, the ryegrass is very sparse and the Patriot Bermuda is just starting to peak it's head out.  

In an effort to speed up our growth and get the grass tee open, we are placing a permeable cover over 1/2 the tee.  It will allow moisture and air to pass through but will hold enough heat to get the soil temperatures up and germinate some ryegrass and give the Bermuda a kick.

In the meantime, we hope to open the short range zoysia tee by this coming weekend.

Permeable cover on long range.

Preparing Sprayer for Dormant Zoysia Pre-emergent/Poa Control

Since I had to come in this morning to open the course, I decided to check spray rig before the next round of below zero temperatures settles in.  Within the next couple of weeks, we will be making our yearly Dormant Zoysia Pre-emergent/Poa control application to our fairways, tees and green surrounds that are covered in zoysia/bermuda.

This application includes a pre-emergent product Ronstar Flowable and non-selective herbicide Glysophate product for post-emergent on our fairways to control crabgrass/goosegrass/poa/other weeds and will kill already germinated poa annua that has popped up in the warm season grass since last fall.  We still need to do some off season work on the sprayer but the main thrust for checking it out was to insure that it is pumping properly before this very important winter spray application.  We try to spray on a sunny day when temperatures are above freezing and the ground can handle the sprayer driving on it.

Poa annua will become active in above freezing temperatures over a few days and will pull the material into its system and the herbicide will kill it over a few weeks.   It is only safe to spray this non-selective material during dormant periods in the dead of winter or it could hurt the warm season grass or delay it breaking dormancy.  The pre-emergent is sprayed onto the turf surface and prevents the shoots of the undesirable weeds from growing which kills the plant.  It is different chemistry than  other pre-emergents that inhibits roots from growing, including your turf grass roots.  If you ever hear someone saying that a pre-emergent is root pruning, that does not occur with the product we use.  It is not as price competitive as other products but when we are spraying over 30 acres like we do our tight zoysia areas, why would we not want the best product for the health of this large area of turf!  

The Glysophate spray will prevent little clumps of poa annua from interfering with play during the early part of the golf season.  It will also help to reduce the seed population of the poa annua which is a prolific seeding plant and will reduce competition in some of the less than ideal growing spots that we have on the course for the warm season grass.  Mainly shaded and or high compaction or traffic areas.  As the warm season grass is weakened, the poa annua or other weeds have a tendency to move in and attempt to reduce the warm season grasses ability to grow properly through competition for sun and water.

Still a few weeks away but the season will be upon us before we know it!

Spot Weed Control

I've been doing some spot weed control on the course the last couple of weeks with more dry weather helping us out.  Instead of doing full broadcast applications, we have been doing spot treatments with both our regular spray machine and small backpack applications.  Wall to wall applications are not necessary, costly and not responsible to the environment we are entrusted to protect.  The spray should be clearing up over the next few days as the turf is mowed and the dying weeds disintegrate.

A little larger area of knotweed contamination along #18 left rough which was too large of an area to spray with the backpack.

You've probably noticed some brown areas where I've made applications in fairways, around greens and spot spraying on tees.  This has been for Kyllinga pictured above and yellow nutsedge.  #1 tee area is covered in Kyllinga and I plan to spray it with the machine after the Invitational is over this week. 

#9 Woodland Garden

The area on #9 dam which is a part of the woodland garden has been over run this year with a large crop of winter annuals including henbit and chickweed.  We have sprayed most of this area with roundup, broad leaf weed killer and preemergent.  We will then mulch it with our oak chipped mulch as soon as the weather dries enough for us to haul the material to the sight without creating significant ruts.  To prevent this outbreak next season, we will have to pre-emerge this area in the early fall to prevent the annuals from emerging.

Broadleaf weed control in warm season green surround

Finally got some broadleaf weed control on the green surrounds of #5 and #6 in which the back half is mostly bermuda grass.  I am also going to do some minor treatment around the intermediate cut for the poa annua which has popped up.  We missed the winter application on these two green surrounds.  My first intention was to allow it to over run the bermuda and convert it to cool season but it looks hideous.  We have to be careful with spraying these plants out this time of year because the product we will use can move so we have to do this during a dry period and then water it down after it has had time to move into the plant to reduce the chances of a heavy rain rushing the material across the green.  We intend to drill seed these areas in the fall with fescue in an effort to get rid of the bermuda for the most part.  I did get the intermediate spray around #8. The poa annua is mixed with other cool season grass on #8 so we will not make any attempt to remove it until fall when we drill in more fescue and then spray a selective material that will help remove the poa from the other cool season grasses.

You can see the knotweed, henbit and chickweed yellowing from the Momentum application.  Hopefully, I can spray the poa annua in the next week or two to remove it.  

Pre-emergent(crabgrass preventative)

Have you made your crabgrass pre-emergent application yet this season?  Its getting close to the time to get this product applied.  Our zoysia application was made in February in combination with RoundUp to kill the poa annua that had germinated.  If you've played the course in the last month, you can see the dead spots of poa annua.  Don't worry, there is zoysia under most of those spots that will fill in once the warm weather arrives for good.  There are a few small spots that we missed  which you can see but overall we had a good application and kill this season.

This past week we have been applying our crabgrass pre-emergent in the rough.  We use the chemical name Prodamine which is commonly known as Barricade or other generic brands.  There is also a product called Dithiopyr(Dimension) that is a good product as well.  This season, we are applying a granulated formulation  on a 0-0-7 potassium fertilizer product at about 185 #'s an acre.  We will be applying about 8,000#'s of material to our roughs, around our tees and on the cool season tees which is only about 5 tee surfaces.  The growing degree models are showing we are still on the low side of the range but we are getting closer each day and wanted to get most of this application down so we can get some rain on it which will release the chemical to the soil surface and will bind with the soil.  The pre-emergent disrupts cell division when it is trying to germinate which leads to its death.  Our grass is happy with this death because it has less competition and I'm happy because we have a purer stand of grass.

Spreader that we use on the large rough area.  It will hold comfortably about 700#'s of product.  We use walk spreaders on the tight areas around greens, bunkers, tees etc.  This spreader will throw about 20' feet on either side of the application, more or less.

New Weed Killer/Damaged Trees

No damaged trees here is my opening salvo regarding the above title.  On to my story.  This spring I began to use a new herbicide called Imprellis.  This is a new chemistry from Dupont that kills many broadleaf weeds both on contact and through the soil which to my knowledge is no other product on the market that is like it.  It has a very low use rate of 3 oz per acre and is very safe for applicators to use.  It is safe on all cool season grass, has some activity on zoysia but will flat knock the socks off of bermuda which interested me because of our need to rid the first cut of rough of bermuda.  So I tried it in some areas, out in the open, away from trees.  It worked well and it sure did knock the bermuda for a loop.  Some just started to grow out of the damage just before the Invitational.  No tree damage to report here.  I wanted to mention this in case any of you had a lawn service apply this product and possibly lost a tree that should be investigated.  As you will see in the reports below, it looks like a multi-million dollar loss and lawsuits to come.

Well, we have come to find out on a large scale that there could be a problem with this chemical on Conifers.
It appears that the material has been sprayed around or near trees and has had a deadly consequence.

Here are a couple of links to news reports regarding this potential problem.

New York Times article

Turfnet.com news

Broadleaf weed control

Mike started our broadleaf weed control applications today.  We normally start at the end of March but rain and aeration got in the way plus high winds prevented us from spraying last week.  We do not intend to do a wall to wall application but will be area spraying high visible areas, green surrounds, tee surrounds, first cut of rough, clubhouse lawn and other areas.  One of the more prevelant weeds that we have on the golf course is prostrate knotweed(Pg 19 in the MU Turfgrass and Weeds guide). 

Assistant Mike out spraying the short range tee area which has a large number of dandelions(Pg 17 in MU Turfgrass ans Weeds guide) and other broadleaf weeds. 

Our close cut of rough will be sprayed in the next couple of weeks as our bermuda rough comes out of dormancy with our combination product that we are utilizing for our bermuda eradication program in the rough.  One of the two products is a broadleaf weed control which assists us in taking care of two different problems at once, injures the bermuda and kills boradleaf weeds.

Nutsedge

Well, the nutsedge(water grass) is trying to over run us but we are trying to fight back. We sprayed our intermediate cut the other day and already are seeing some pretty good effects on this horrible weed. Also did some hand spraying around the bunkers and have more areas to spray out throughout the golf course. We use a product called Sedgehammer(Halosulfuron-methyl) which was originally formulated by Monsanto and was called Manage.