Leaves, leaves and more leaves

During the fall, we attempt to do leaf removal work on a regular basis. The last two weeks of October which included well over 8-10" of rain prevented us from doing any leaf removal work because of the soft and wet conditions. We were able to do about 4 hours of work on October 29th before the deluge started again. This past week, we have been working non-stop to blow, grind and pick up the leaves that dropped during the wet spell and continue to chase leaves that continue to fall. We use our two large area rough mowers and our green surround mowers to grind up the leaves. There are two blower units that clear the fairways and rough or place the leaves in windrows for the mowers and sweeper to pick up leaves. We also use our large vacuum sweeper to pickup leaves as well.

Below is a picture of our sweeper as I was dumping our leaves in the back area of the range. The machine will grind up the leaves and blow them in the back of the unit. They dump into a compressed pile of leaves. We picked up multiple loads of leaves over the past two days which you can see in the next picture.


The remaining leaves on property are ground up by our mowing units and will become apart of the soil. The ground leaves will decompose in the top layer of the soil and will improve the overall health of the turf.

Irrigation repair in 10 fairway

A week ago Saturday, we had a major irrigation leak at the start of #10 fairway. The blow out created a hole about 3' deep and about 4' square in our fairway as you can see by the picture below.

Once we dug up the area, the guys had to break concrete from around the tee. The concrete is used as a thrust block which protects the pipes many tees and changes in direction from damage due to the pressure and speed of water that is running through our system. We believe possibly that the weight of the thrust block with the large amounts of rain in October possibly allowed the pipe to pull out of the ductile cast iron tee that you see in the trench.

We replaced the tee and repaired the situation. We will be back filling the hole as the dirt settles and will cover with sod once the hole has completely settled.

From the University of Florida extension service publication CIR1424, there is a good explanation of why thrust blocks are used.

Thrust Blocking
These forces include water under pressure in pipelines exerts thrust forces at tees, elbows, valves, and at any change in pipe size or direction. At times there may be sudden changes in pipeline grade, horizontal alignment of the pipe, or reduction in pipe size. These conditions result in axial thrust and require an anchor or thrust blocks to absorb any axial thrust of the pipeline. Thrust control may also be needed at the end of the pipeline and at in-line control valves. Thrust blocks and anchors must be large enough to withstand the forces that tend to move the pipe. These forces include momentum and pressure as well as forces due to expansion and contraction of pipe.

Tree down during storm

Before the trees began to lose their leaves, I've identified a number of trees which are weak structurally and could possibly pose a hazard to our members, guests and staff. One of the trees was an old white oak at the beginning of #1 fairway. The tree was in pretty serious decline above ground and was showing some weakness at the ground level as well.

Before we had the opportunity to remove this tree, the heavy rain we experienced for 10 days in late October brought the tree to the ground.

New Fescue Sod around greens

We just replaced the intermediate zoysia/bermuda rough around greens #7, 11, 12 and 18.
The picture below is the big roll sod that we used to help speed up the process. There are less seams that need to heal and quicker laying and the material which allows staff to do other jobs. Jason is operating the tractor and Jose is pulling the plastic netting off of the sod as it is rolled out. We initially had to strip out the old sod and hand shoveled this material into the back of carts because of the soft conditions and narrow confines where we were working. A few weeks ago we were able remove the old sod using a tractor with box blade and the front loader and dump truck. A little more work this time.

The picture below is the left side of 12 green. We ran out of time to complete the right side. It will be completed in the next few days. The new work tied into the back of the green which was replaced this past spring.

The view below is from the back to the front along the left side of #11 green. We replaced four widths of sod along the green collar. This is next to the area of sod we replaced last spring. We also placed four strips of sod on the right side and back of the green as well. We do have some bermuda on the side hill and bank which we will begin to seed into and also do herbicide treatments to reduce the aggressiveness of the bermuda grass.

You will notice heads exposed with no sod on them next to a couple of the newly sodded areas. We will be digging these heads up in the next few days and raise the top of the head to the level of the new sod.

This is the walk off area of #7 green next to 8 tee box.

Standing in the same spot at the top of the walk off area on #7 but looking to the front of the green. We also replaced sod on the left side of the green as well to tie into the back of the green.

The right side of #18 green looking to the front. This work ties into the turf between #18 and PG sod which was placed last spring.

Eastern White Pine

We have a number of Eastern White Pines on our property. Every fall, the White Pine will begin to lose its 2nd year needles. This is a natural occurrence that the trees experience every fall.
I have experienced at other facilities a needle drop during the spring which normally occurs because of some type of environmental stress that effects the growth of the tree and causes the needles to drop early. Disease, insects, and or large swings in temperature or moisture that occur from time to time create this phenomenon.

The needles at the tip of the branch are this years new growth.
For additional information on the Eastern White Pine, check out the link below.
http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/regions/lawnandgarden/EvergreenNeedleDrop.pdf

Additional Verti-drain Deep tine aerating

There are other areas of our facility that we are utilizing our deep tined aerifier to help relieve compaction other than our greens. The walk off areas of our greens receive a great deal of traffic over the season from equipment and golfers. 4" deep hole will assist in water penetration and will help exchange oxygen into the turf root zone. We will also do a core aeration in the next month or so as weather allows.

We also used the machine to aerify our cool season tees to help them with water penetration over the winter as you can see below.

Collar nursery seeding

A few weeks ago, I posted some initial pictures and information regarding the collar nursery we are preparing in the area of the 16th tee and 2 fairway. Well, we finally got the nursery seeded today. A few weeks late but it should sprout in the next couple of weeks and begin to grow.
A few pictures to explain our process. Asst. Mike is spreading some fertilizer and micro nutrient products on the surface. He then mixed some organic fertilizer with our Cato/Crenshaw bentgrass seed and spread it 2 directions onto the surface of the sand. Did you know there are 7,000,000 seeds per pound? We seeded 6#s of seed on this nursery with over 42,000,000 seeds planted. Six pounds of seed would fit in a large coffee can to give you some sense of the size of this very small seed.
Skip then used our bunker rake machine to help press the seed into the surface of the sand.

This process is called dimpling of the sand which you can see below.
Once this process was complete, the area is covered by a turf blanket which allows for light, water and air to penetrate and will help hold in some heat for the seed to germinate. You will notice over the next 4-6 weeks that the blanket could be off during sunny days and will be placed back on at night to help hold soil temperatures up to keep the green growing for a bit longer this season.
Additional information on Cato/Crenshaw bentgrass can be found in the following link.

http://www.pickseed.com/usa/Products/PDF/cc_blend_ts.pdf