First Snow

The course was in need of some natural precipitation, and last night we finally got it!  Rain began last night and turned to snow overnight.  We came in this morning to 3 or 4 inches of new snow on the ground with snow still falling.  The forecast is calling for around 8 inches total with this storm, so we the plows on and the shovels out for snow removal.  There is no better source of moisture than mother nature, as much as we strive for uniformity with our irrigation system, natural rainfall insures that every inch of the course receives ample moisture.  The downside to all of this wet snow is that most of our trees and shrubs haven't lost their leaves yet, so some fallen branches are pretty likely.  We will do our best to have the mess cleaned up by the time we reopen, assuming the weather cooperates. 

Compost is Complete

We finished topdressing compost on fairways approaches and tees!  It took a little while with our schedule split between our two courses, but we got it knocked out.  120 yds were spread over 26 acres for a rate of approximately 4.6 yards per acre.  This is a little lighter than our rates in the past, but we are confident that we will have good green up in the spring and that our nutrient levels will stay strong without a synthetic winter fertilizer application to these areas. 

We are toying with the notion of including rough in our future applications of compost and foregoing any synthetics if possible.  That isn't to say that we won't use any slow release sources, but to this point, we are very pleased with the results and hope to expand our program even further.  For more information about the benefits of compost check out the United States Composting Council website.  On a side note, Chris Johnson has been asked to give an hour long webinar for the GCSAA in January on our compost program here at Legacy Ridge.  We are all looking forward to viewing it and are proud of the notoriety Chris and Legacy Ridge are receiving in the matter.

Nursery Update

The 1/4" Nursery has grown in nicely and will likely be ready for sod when we complete some of our tee additions this winter.  It has been dropped in height down to 3/8" in the last week or two and is now part of the approach mowing order.  It was core aerated with approaches and tees this fall and has been topdressed regularly with sand and compost.  In a way it will be a shame to have to reseed and grow it back in when sod is cut from it, but such is the life of a nursery.  For our efforts we should have a good source of in house sod at a moments notice and at a fraction of the cost of purchasing 1/4" sod.  There is also piece of mind in knowing that it will thrive in our soil conditions and under our agronomic practices.

Greens Update

We are now a week removed from our fall aeration of greens tees and approaches.  We are happy with the progress made to this point.  Greens were verticut on Tuesday to move some sand around and despite a little mess left after the following morning mowing, it worked out great.  We are cutting a great deal of grass when we mow, so we will continue with daily mowing and rolling to get them back under control.  Green speeds are not what they typically are, but that is completely normal and expected.  Speed will come back with time as long as we can keep the roller going. 

Currently our bentgrass is growing at an accelerated rate because of ideal growing conditions and higher than normal fertility levels.  Prior to aeration we give a little extra shot of fertilizer to help our greens endure the stress aeration can cause.  They are certainly not as smooth as they were prior to aeration, but we are confident that within another week, it will be hard to tell that they were aerated at all.  Aeration is and should always be a compromise for golfers and turf staff alike.  We would love to be more aggressive with aeration, but we understand that the sooner we get these areas back into shape, the sooner we can offer the best possible experience to our guests.  At the same time, without aeration at all, the long term health and playability of our green, tees and approaches would be compromised.  Look for fairway aeration to start in the next week or so, and check back for more information to come.          

A group effort

About a month ago, we lost the majority of our seasonal staff to college, high school, and sleeping in.  Since their departure we have had a very hard time keeping up with our daily maintenance, not to a point of disrepair, but not to the standards that we have as an organization.  Going along with the mantra of "Power in Numbers" we will be doubling up at the Heritage next Monday morning to mow out the place and check off detail work more efficiently and timely.  With our staffs combined we can accomplish much more together than seperately at our respective courses.  At this point it is just a trial, but if it proves successful we will likely use it primarily in the shoulder season, when we are understaffed despite rapid turfgrass growth.

Aeration Update

The course reopened after only a day and a half closure yesterday at noon.  We were able to complete aeration of greens, tees and approaches less than a dozen people and in about half the time.  Ordinarily we close at 2pm the Sunday prior to aeration week and reopen the following Wednesday.  This year we were able to bust out aeration, cleanup, topdressing and dragging all in a day and a half.  We encoutered some challenges with our Soil Reliever (deep-tine machine) when we attempted to fit 16" tines for the first time.  After half a day of struggles we opted to go back to our 12" tines which as usual worked flawlessly.  Jim did a fantastic job keeping everyone moving and making adjustments and repairs very quickly.  To my knowledge there weren't any major equipment problems, a testament to Jims preventative maintenance.   

Getting greens back into shape will be our main focus in the coming week or so.  We will try for a mow on Sunday and will likely roll on days when we don't mow.  Tees and Approaches cleaned up very nicely and should get a trim over the weekend at some point.  All of these areas are extremely soft and will be for the near future, so be careful with clubs, carts and footsteps as they can be extra damaging under current condions.  We will continue dragging and rolling to move sand around and slowly firm up all playing surfaces.  The importance of aeration cannot be overstated, as much as it is a nuisance to our guests for a week, it is exponetionally important to providing excellent playing conditions the other 51 weeks of the year.  Bare with us and if the weather cooperates we should be back in shape in no time flat.  A big thanks to our staff and the Heritage staff that spent the last couple days helping us out with aeration.  We enjoy having them over and couldn't do all of this in such a short time without them.      

Tea Time

Amazingly we have blogged for almost a season now and we haven't yet discussed our compost tea efforts in the past couple years.  We have incorporated more and more organic fertilizer sources in the past 3 years and after a little bit of research and curiosity we decided to start brewing our own compost tea.  There are a many who say there are few if any benefits to using compost tea, however there is an equal number of people who wholeheartedly stand behind it as an invaluable tool in their agronomic programs.

At the risk of over generalizing, the primary motivation with compost tea is to increase microbial populations in the soil.  Some are attempting to increase fungal based microbes in to the soil to combat destructive turf diseases and lessen reliance on fungicides to fight them off.  Others are more geared towards a bacteria based microbe that can fix nutrients in the soil and lessen a dependence on synthetic fertilizer sources.  We would be in the latter group of tea brewers.

We just so happened to have an old RGF water recycling system that was installed (almost completely) when the course was built.  The intent was to recycle the water used to wash equipment off, however it was never installed correctly and parts quickly became extinct for this particular machine and it has sat inoperable for many years.  We took this as perfect opportunity to free up storage space and make use of something we already have! 

Anyways, we modified it, rebuilt an old aerator pump from one of our lakes and vuola, we have a 250 gallon compost tea brewer.  While it is a little different than most brewers you will find for sale, and louder than a 747 taking off, it certainly does the job.

For no more than $100 we modified our water tank trailer into a compost tea sprayer, which we still use in the winter for spot watering.  The next step, which we are still working on, was to work out our recipe.  Based on what we know and have read, this year we purchased 250 lbs of vermicompost from Full Circle Compost in Nevada.

They actually make a variety of different composts blended with a ton of different products and additives for the very purpose of brewing compost tea.  Our particular blend contains vermicompost, seaweed, hydrolyzed fish, humates, mycorrhizal fungi, and paramagnetic rock dust.  We are very pleased with our progress this year and hope to dial in our recipe further next year. 

We failed miserably at producing our own vermicompost this spring, utilizing food scraps from the Grill at Legacy Ridge (no meat or dairy!), but we will give it another try this winter and see what we can come up with.  If you have any questions about our tea program, please feel free to ask our staff members.

Compost is here

A sure sign that aeration is upon us, 120 yds of compost arrived today and will be a mainstay in our parking lot until aeration is completed.  In the past we have ordered 200yds, but with a tight budget for the remainder of the year, we cut our rate slightly to save a little money.  We have discussed before some of the benefits we hope to realize in amending our soil with compost, but there is no better time than after we pull aeration cores.  Just like we did in the spring after the cleanup of cores is completed we will topdress approaches and tees with a heavy dose of sand.  Depending on weather and timing, we will likely topdress tees and approaches in conjuction with fairways.

The compost serves two main purposes, though we are treating it in this case as a fertilizer source and secondarily as a soil amendment.  While the two go hand in hand, we don't use nearly the amount of compost that we do when topdressing sand to fill aeration holes.  Our concern with using compost alone as an ammendment in the case of approaches and tees is that it lacks porosity and in the profile could eventually lead to a less firm playing surface.  Obviously we have similar concerns about fairways, at the moment we feel the benefits outweigh our concerns in this case.

An ideal solution might be to blend a topdressing sand with the high quality compost we purchase, but to this point we are unable to buy the large quantity of sand neccesary and settle instead on compost alone.  We supplement with sand topdressing in isolated areas, primarily swales and drainage areas in certain fairways to aide in water percolation.

On a side note, the compost this fall is easily the product we have received to date.  A new screen had to be purchased by our supplier to reach our specs, but in our opinion it was well worth it.  It should drag in with little or no mess left behind, which is great for everyone.

Tee it Forward

The stakes you have likely been noticing out on the course this summer are marking the possible location of some new tee boxes.  As we mentioned a few months ago, we are in the planning stage of adding or enlarging 10 tee boxes around the course this fall.  Our hope is that more teeing options will give the less-experienced player a shorter scorecard to navigate at our facility.  This in turn should equate to a more enjoyable experience and a quicker pace of play for all golfers. 

As a daily-fee facility we have to accommodate golfers at both ends of the golf spectrum and for many novice players Legacy, like many modern courses, is too long and tight.  So adding forward tee boxes allows us to set the course up more difficult for tournaments as we always have, while setting the white and red tees up at much shorter yardage to accommodate players who don't hit tee shots 300 yards.  The majority of golfers play a tee box beyond their ability primarily because of ego.  This can easily lead to slow play, and often times a less than enjoyable round of golf.  We encourage players to use the guidelines displayed on the Tee it Forward website when selecting a tee box.  It is mainly based on Driver distance, but a golf handicap is another method commonly used.   

As an added bonus we have more tees boxes to give our regulars a new look on holes they have played many times, offering a completely unique series of shots.  We look forward to illustrating our process in building these tees, but for now here is another link if you would like more information about the "Play Golf America" movement. 

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.       

Summer turf diseases

If you been out to Legacy Ridge or many of the other courses in the area the last few weeks, you have likely noticed some disturbing symptoms of the irradic weather we have experienced lately.  While I can't speak for other courses, what you are likely seeing are a variety of turf diseases due to our higher than normal humidity, torrential rain, and heat.  Though they don't affect the overall playability of the course currently, they are definitely a big eyesore and theses areas will have to be repaired when disease pressure decreases.

We have suffered from a laundry list of turf diseases generally uncommon in this climate, Pythium Blight, Fusarium, and Brown Patch.  We made a curative application of fungicide to the harder hit areas of the course this week and should see improvement in the coming days.  Throughout the midwest and even back east, theses diseases are a constant threat and many courses employ preventative fungicide applications to prevent or limit the damage incurred.  In their climates it really isn't a question of whether, but when they will have to deal with theses problems.  While I was perusing the couple of the blogs we follow, I came upon a post by Mike Edgerton at Meadowbrook CC in Northville, Michigan.  He covered some of the diseases we have been hit with and if you are interested in a little more explanation of them click here. 

Employee BBQ

Today we are setting up for our annual employee BBQ.  We like to treat the crew to at least one day where we all punch out a little early and enjoy a cookout and social time here at the shop. 

The guys and gals from the Heritage GC take turns hosting and will be over as well this year for a little different fare than in years past.  Typically we cook burgers, dogs and brauts but this year we divided up cooking responsibilities and are serving some actual BBQ! 

Pulled pork, Pork Back ribs, and Brisket are on the menu today and it will be a welcome change from the usual.  A few of us here enjoy tinkering with smokers at home and volunteered our services (however valuable that may be) in preparing the food this year. 

It may seem like a small thing, but it really seems to lift spirits this time of year and hopefully shows our appreciation of the work our seasonal staff do each season.

Interseeding

This morning we verticut greens again in conjunction with a sand topdressing, only this time with a bit of a twist.  With conditions definitely favoring bentgrass at the moment, we took the opportunity to interseed T1 bentgrass while our Poa Annua is stressing a little more from the heat.  After Poa has gone to seed in late spring, it weakens and can quickly lose ground to the deeper-rooted bentgrass when maintained properly. 

We applied seed with drop spreaders before the topdressing went down at a rate of about 1/2#/1000 sq ft.  T1 is a variety we have had success interseeding with and on our nursery green.  It establishes pretty quickly and is a beautiful shade of green when compared to the Dominant Blend bentgrasses we began with 18 years ago.  It is aggressive laterally and has proven to fight off Poa Annua under our maintenance regimen on our Nursery Green.

Following the seed , we applied 24 tons of 80/20 USGA sand/peat mixture with our topdresser, drug it in with our cocoa mat and said a little prayer for seed germination.  The peat isn't normally incorporated in our topdresssing sand, but should hold a little more moisture than straight sand to help the seed stay moist longer.  We will give the seed a light watering each morning to help along germination.  There should be another slight increase in speed following our verticut, and with speeds already at 11' today, it is recommended to keep the ball below the hole whenever possible.

         

Finally feels like July

With all of the rain we received the previous week, the course is plenty green with the exception of some areas that held water in puddles through the daily rain events last week.  Most of these areas are now an unsightly shade of orange and will have to be addressed in the next few days. 

While the grass plant needs water to survive, too much of a good thing can be deadly, especially when heavy rain is followed by high temperatures.  Perfect conditions for Pythium and Melting Out, turf diseases that are fairly unusual in our semi-arid climate, but active under conditions we have experienced the last week and a half.  Humidity levels have dropped back down to more normal levels, so the threat of these diseases has slowed at the moment.  Hopefully it will remain that way.   

We will start with our remedies by aerating these areas with 1/4" solid-tines to open the soil up and allow oxygen into the profile.  "Venting" is a popular practice in wetter regions of the country where moisture is never lacking and temperatures reach the 100's.  Many courses employ this method on a biweekly basis to minimize summer decline on greens, tees, and fairways.  Hopefully it will prove successful in bringing back some of our water logged low areas on the course.  If need be we will reseed these areas and try to get them back in shape quickly.  Your patience is appreciated.   

    

So much rain in so little time

In the past week, we have received more rain than we typically average in an entire summer.  A little over 3" of rain has fallen, much of which came in a matter of minutes.  Obviously our soil can accept a small amount of this rain in such a short time, so the remaining water ends up puddling and running down the drain.  The storm on Friday afternoon produced very strong winds that spread branches all over the course and even down some very large branches and trees.  The weather station showed 1" falling in less than an hour "more like 10 minutes" and another .5" falling a couple hours later in less than an hour. 

All of this, the day before our City Championship.  The course sustained a great deal of damage to bunkers, with most of the sand washing down to the bottom of the traps.  Dave and the guys did the best they could to clean up debris and cutting up fallen branches when they wanted to be trimming the place out and focusing on fine details for the tournament.  We will continue to clean up the mess as we prepare to host two qualifiers for the Colorado Open on Thursday and Monday the 18th.  Sorry there aren't more pictures, most of the damage was too painful to post. 

 



Details

In less than a week, we will be hosting a couple of qualifiers for the Colorado Open.  We don't get the opportunity to showcase our facility too many times a year, so we take extra care when we do get the opportunity.  Many of the details we focus on will likely go unnoticed by most people, but give a finished look to the course we take such pride in. 

Things like edging drain basins, sprinklers, and yardage plaques often take a backseat to other more basic maintenance tasks, but with a full staff that is operating efficiently we can knock them out pretty quickly.
If the weather holds off, we should have things looking really good for Colorado Open hopefuls.

Nursery Update

 About a week ago we seeded the "1/4" Nursery" as we call it.  The prep consisted of killing off the native grass, mowing it down to 1" a couple directions and rototilling multiple directions incorporating our in house compost to amend the soil.  After about 4 days of light and frequent irrigation cycles and warm sunny days, much of the seed popped.  On the 4th of July we added a celebratory shot of 19-25-5 fertilizer to get things going.  We will continue irrigating only to keep the soil moist, save a couple days a week to allow for a tidy roll.  Hopefully by the end of the week it should be ready for another roll and then a mowing.  As the roots begin to take hold, we will topdress it by hand to continue smoothing the surface and slowly scale back the irrigation.  Our goal is to have it grown in by the end of the month, so we can harvest sod from it this fall.  We have a quite a few new tees to build in the next year, so the sooner we can begin, the better. 

As luck would have it, a few nights after we seeded, a sprinkler on the hill above the Nursery blew up and washed a nice portion of new seedlings out.  We will reseed this area, along with the rest of the nursery at a lighter rate to fill in the voids.  We erred a little on the light side with our seed rate, so lesson learned for next time when we have stripped sod off and have to start over.