Saturday, May 30, 2009

Green speeds 5/30

As posted in my earlier blog this morning, we have received about
1inch of rain in the last 18 hours. This morning we decided to brush
the greens prior to mowing and rolling to help with potentially slower
speeds because of the wetness. Below you can see a photo of the
brushing process. Immediately following the process this morning, the
greens were rolling a solid 10' on the stimp meter. As the day
progresses with temperatures in the high 70's the greens will dry and
the roll will continue to set. All of this will increase green speeds.

Storms last evening

Good morning. Yesterday early evening Hartefeld was hit by several additional storms. In addition to the .5 inches of rain that fell at 3:00am on Friday morning, we recieved an addtional .5 inches of rain during these storms. Today, we will be utilizing cart path only with blue flags until 12pm. Please be extremely careful after 12pm manuevering the golf course, it will still be a bit wet.

Thank you!

Friday, May 29, 2009

Rain this morning

Good day! Very early this morning we received .5 inches of rain. We
were able to complete our mowing, but had to restrict cart traffic
until 11am. The greens were a bit soft this morning due to the rain,
but should dry out and speed up as the day progresses. I hope all have
a good weekend and those playing in The Cup this weekend, good luck!

William Brown, CGCS
Regional Agronomist

Pegasus Golf Management

Sent from wireless device.

Cart rules

We will be CPO until 11am today. Blue flags will permitted.

Thank you for your cooperation.

William Brown, CGCS
Regional Agronomist

Pegasus Golf Management

Sent from wireless device.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

A more progressive style

Today we will be making one of our biweekly fairway spray applications and I felt necessary to explain what we are doing. For many years now, I have been using what some would call, a more progressive style of turfgrass management. This style uses very aggressive BMP (Best Management Practices) and IPM (Integrated Pest Management) programs. Our goal in utilizing these programs is to reduce the overall amount of pesticides and other inputs that are used on the course and to build the plants natural defense mechanisms to levels that the plant is able to fight it's own fight. Now, there are always those occasions especially in this area of the country, when we must utilize the newer safer plant protectants, but we try to keep that to a minimum.
Our fairway spray today is a good example of the above. In today's spray, we are applying a phosphite, Calcium, Nitrogen and a Nitrogen stabilizer. The use of phosphites is relatively new over the last 5 plus years in the industry. Through years of research, it was found that the plant natural produces phosphite or PO3. It was also found that if the level of phosphite in the plant is raised to certain levels, some common diseases we see in this area will no longer infect the plant or if they do, it is at very tolerable levels. By spraying a phosphite, which is not a pesticide, on our turf every two weeks we are naturally raising the plants own defense mechanism to fend off hosts.
The calcium we also apply every 2 weeks. This is the purest form of calcium you can apply to turfgrass which makes it readily available to the plant once it is applied. Calcium is so important in so many ways to a turfgrass plant. By continuing to apply this form of calcium, we are ensuring we will not have deficiencies.
As many of you know, nitrogen is also extremely important for turfgrass. We apply extremely low rates of a foliar nitrogen every 2 weeks. We include what is called a stabilizer so the nitrogen stays available to the plant. The form of nitrogen we use is a liquid urea. Urea is very volatile in the atmosphere. If we were to not add the stabilizer, once the spray landed on the plant, if the uptake of the urea was slow, most of the urea would be lost to a gas in the atmosphere. Utilizing this stabilizer ensures we lose little to none of our application. We also use a stabilizer because urea is a very readily available for of nitrogen to a grass plant. If we did not use a stabilizer, the urea applied would be used up by the plant in a very short period of time. We would see rapid growth of our fairways which is not conducive to golf course conditions. Using the stabilizer allows a small portion of the urea to be released to the plant so we don't have a slush of growth.

Till next time.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Checking Twitterfeed again

Sorry for the test post. Just trying to determine if twitterfeed is working properly.

Bill

Twitter

Checking to see if my twitterfeed works. Keep our fingers crossed for
a little rain tonight.

William Brown, CGCS
Regional Agronomist

Pegasus Golf Management

Sent from wireless device.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Beautiful morning

As I type this entry I am scouting the course and supplementing some
areas with additional water. My morning drive/scout of the course is
probably my most favorite part of this job. When scouting a course a
Superintendent is taking inventory of his property. Looking for
disease/insects, taking inventory of moisture levels, evaluating
maintenance practices and always adding to the To Do list.
I think the course looks fabulous this morning. The course is drying
out nicely, green speeds are solid, we are progressing nicely. One
thing I have taken notice of this morning is our poa annua. The
applications of trimmit and the drying of the course is beginning to
take a toll on the poa. This is a good thing!


William Brown, CGCS
Regional Agronomist

Pegasus Golf Management

Sent from wireless device.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Green Speeds

At Hartefeld our goal is to keep the greens rolling consistent and true and at a speed of between 10' and 10.5' on the stimp meter. We were able to meet that goal all of last year and have continued to produce these conditions this year. Now, golf is in outdoor sport and is at the mercy of Mother Nature. We do everything we can to make adjustments to what Mother Nature throws us each day to maintain consistency. Some days it is challenging, for example, excessive rain, excessive humidity, and during aerification recovery.
Green speeds cannot change dramatically from day to day unless one of the above occurs. Green speeds may change during the day or from day to day by approximately plus or minus .25'. The week of May 18th through today the greens have been rolling a solid 10. This morning they are approximately 10.25' on the stimp meter.
Below is a video produced by the USGA on stimping a green.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Frost
























Well 2 years in a row now we have had a significant frost delay in mid May. The delay only set the crew back about an hour. We made adjustments to our schedule to ensure completion of all important tasks.

I know bunkers have been a hot topic. It has been communicated several time our intention to complete the bunkers this fall and winter. In January I made a presentation to the BOA regarding the bunkers and what my team was going to do to keep the bunkers in best possible playing condition. We rated the bunkers A, B and C, C being the worst. We had 40 A's needing very little work, 12 B's needing a decent amount of work and C's needing major work. We were able to complete about 2 B bunkers in a day once the bunkers thawed. The photos attached were of an A bunker and what it took to return to playable condition.
We are aware of the continued bunker problem. We are allocating resources to deal with the continued linear and staple issue each time we rake the bunkers. We again thank you for your cooperation.

Monday, May 18, 2009

What a great day today, little chilly, but good weather. We had a pretty "normal" day today. We began repairing our irrigation break at the chipping green. We will continue to roll and topdress the green to smooth the surface. The irrigation break under the green took place on the higher side and because the medium of the green is sand, the water was able to easily work its' way under the green to the lower side. We had shut the green down for a few days because stepping on the green was like literally walking on a water bed. We hope to have the repair made by the end of the week.

Till tomorrow.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Rain...Rain...Rain

Well, we received another .8 inches of rain last night and it came down quick!! Evaluating the course this morning, we had to restrict carts this morning, but should be okay for the afternoon. We had to alter our mowing a bit, so the team is aware of the wetter areas of the course.

The rain did water in our Poa annua control, which is exactly what we needed. Due to all the rain we have had this year, it is important we stay on top of our Poa control. All our fertilizer applied to the fairways was also watered in for us.

Enjoy the weekend!

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Test blog from iPhone

Just testing the ability to post a blog from my iPhone.

William Brown, CGCS
Regional Agronomist

Pegasus Golf Management

Sent from wireless device.

First Day!!

Well, I am glad you all have decided to join me. As I stated in the weekly update, this is something new I would like to try to help communicate the daily operation of the Hartefeld Golf Course Maintenance team. I will be doing my best to post something everyday, could be just a real short update on the course, some turf tips for you home lawn superintendents, or to discuss some of the challenges we faced that day. At the very least I will be posting 3 times per week.

To start, as I am typing, I am watching the incoming rain and hoping for a little. We put a spray down on the fairways today for control of the Poa annua and it could use some water. We also fertilized all the fairways to help promote the ryegrass.

Thats all for now. I hope all playing in the outing tomorrow enjoy the weather and the course!!