Fall Aeration

Yes, that's right, AERATION.  As August draws to a close, we begin to make preparations for our annual fall aeration of our low cut playing areas.  This year we will be deep-tining and core aerating our greens beginning Monday the 19th of September.  In addition we will do our best to complete core aeration of our tees and fairways by Wednesday the 21st. 

The course will be closed until noon on Wednesday and any remaining fairways and tees will be completed shortly thereafter.  This will likely leave approach aeration to be completed while the course is open.  Though this isn't optimal, it is nearly impossible for us to complete everything in such a short time span. 

The aeration process typically goes pretty quickly, as long as we avoid costly equipment problems.  It is normally the topdressing that follows aeration cleanup that takes the most time.  Transporting our topdresser to and from our shop proves to be very time consuming.  We always do our best to make aeration as painless as possible for our guests and members, but some disruption is likely.  Please remain patient and in a couple of weeks, aeration will be only a distant memory.  Thank you for your cooperation.

Where does the time go

In the last couple of weeks, our seasonal staff has dwindled down to only three, two of which are part time.  Unfortunately all of the maintenance tasks completed rather efficiently in the busy summer months are very difficult to complete with a fraction of the staff we enjoy in the peak months.  This means everyone is doing two or three or four things at once, specializing in everything all at once!  It is this time of year that we welcome some cooler weather and dream of frost to slow growth down to a crawl.  We will attend to all of the detail work, it just takes longer and there is an opportunity cost for everything we tackle.  Everyday we will continue to strive for the best playing conditions in the area.  Thank you for your continued patronage.
   

You have to be kidding me!

Early this morning we discovered that an unwanted visitor decided to leave their mark by spinning donuts right in the middle of the putting green. 

The resulting damage could have been a lot worse and luckily it wasn't a large truck or SUV.  Most of the tire tracks rolled out pretty well, but in isolated areas the tires left a 2" deep rut and peeled up some tufts of bentgrass.  Obviously we weren't very pleased with their decision, but we really didn't have time to be upset as our first tee time was in less than an hour (6am). 

We promptly rolled with the tire marks to help smooth some of the lumps created and topdressed/ broomed/ drug the areas by hand and rolled again to work some of the sand into the depressions.  Once we reached a satisfactory smoothness, we ran a mower over to pick up any excess sand left behind. 

The result is undoubtedly an eyesore that will hopefully heal soon with some more rolling and topdressing. 

If anyone witnesses this taking place at Legacy Ridge or any other course, please notify local PD immediately so they can handle the situation.  This type of activity shows a complete lack of respect for private property is no different than vandalising or robbing another place of business.  When you consider that the USGA estimates cost of a new green between $4 and $7 per square foot, if our putting green were damaged beyond repair we could be talking in excess of $50,000 to replace it.  It would require severe damage to necessitate that, but had this occurred immediately after the 4.5" of rain we had weeks ago, that could have been a reality.  Too scary to think about.  Please respect our golf course as we maintain it for you our guests and neighbors. 

High Qualtiy H2O, well sorta...

Picture at 5am didn't come out very good...

Over the last three years we have taken samples of water both before and after it has been applied to our greens.  We installed what we call our sampling pits on four greens #6, 8, 10 and 16.  These greens were selected primarily because they have one drainage outfall, or one pipe where all the water exits.  It is important to that other drain lines tie in below the point in which we sample, so the results aren't skewed by bunker drainage or trunk lines carrying runoff. 

We installed what is basically a 10" drain basin that extends 2-4' down to the trunk drain line carrying water away from the green.  There is enough room to reach down with a plastic bottle and draw out water running through the basin.  We drilled holes in the bottom of the basin and bedded it with gravel to prevent water from stagnating in the bottom between irrigation cycles.     

We have the ability to test for a variety of things, our primary focus to this point has been on monitoring sodium content of the water, and therefore the sodium content of our soil.  Soil salinity is measured as the salt concentration of the soil solution in terms of g/l or electric conductivity (EC) in dS/m.  Our reclaimed water was quite high in sodium when the system first began operating, but has since dropped down to more manageable levels.  The key in that sentence is manageable, it must be managed regularly with deep flushing, calcium and magnesium applications, and most of all aeration.  Extreme sodium buildup can lead to a variety of soil and turf problems, in short it prevents water and nutrients from "attaching" to soil colloids, thus creating less than optimal growing conditions.

We measure the EC of the water we irrigate with, we then soak greens with up to 2" of water, the next morning we measure the EC of the water exiting the green, which tells us how much sodium we flushed.  This helps in determining how heavy we need to water and when we need to apply gypsum to aide in the "flushing" mentioned above.  We typically water greens only as needed which normally equates to 6-10 days depending on weather.  Many courses employ a similar means of monitoring their sodium levels, so this isn't anything new, just another way to better manage our facility.