Cooling greens

The turf care staff has been doing a good job of managing the surface tempertures of the Bentgrass greens. Over the past few days it has been extremely hot and humid. The tempertures of the putting surface have been @110 degrees around lunch time until 5 pm. Handwatering hot spots and syringing the greens helps to degrease surface tempetures. This will be a daily routine until we get into the fall of the year.

rye grass transition and bermuda grass

The summer has come on strong with 90 plus temperatures. This is good for growing Bermuda grass quickly, however it is not so good for rye grass. We have had some issues with tree line management as it relates to the Bermuda grass coming out of the worst winter in over 15 years. The Bermuda grass is less than 15 months old in most tree line areas on the front nine of the golf course. It was very young and not suited to handle a winter like we received last year. It will take a couple of years to see full maturity of the Bermuda grass. This is to be expected after a course has been renovated. Unless unseasonable tempertures create better growing conditions Looking at some old records of the Foundry, the same issue happened with the vamont Bermuda grass in 1993. It suffered a cold winter and there were large areas of Bermuda grass winter kill that had to be replaced. This was a less than two year after opening.

Just to note that last year we had to replace 10 acres of Bermuda grass in the month May for the opening in July. Most of the golfers did not even realize that once we opened the doors for play. This year we had 2.5 acres of winter kill total. Including the areas we will replace in fairways. Within a few weeks the Bermuda grass will be 95 percent covered in the fairways.

irrigation storage pond

Irrigation Pond looks good for this time of the year!

foundry's aeration process

1. Topdress using A USGA tested sand (Same as greens mix)
2. Aerate greens (tine sizes vary through out the year)
3. Brush or blow plugs into a pile. Pick up and dispose
4. Roll greens to smooth out surface
5. Water sand off of leaf blades into canopy.

Today was the last of the big areas around greens. Most all the sodded areas were from extended shade and snow cover from this past winter. Some of the sod that was removed still had a few green bermudagrass stolons. We choose to recycles them in the rough areas where there was winter kill. Over the next few weeks these areas will fill in with some tlc.

sodding winterkill areas

bermuda grass is growing

The weather has changed in a hurry. The past week end was a hot one with three days above 95 degrees. The rye grass is burning out and the bermuda grass is growing.

winter kill replacement

The turf crew is replacing winter kill bermuda

winter bermuda replacement

Foundry turf staff has replaced one truck load of bermuda grass winterkill this week. There will be at least 2 more trucks to finish the worst damaged areas. These areas are around 3,7 and 9 greens sites

Dale, The foundry's technician is grinding some reel mowers.

today we have a applied fertilizer to jump start the bermuda grass to help aid with bermuda grass transition on fairways and tees along with feeding the bermuda grass in he rough.

We have also applied a light topdress to the greens for a smoother playing surface, along with helping to maintain a healthy thatch layer

Test

I will be using this site to help members see some of the projects, culture practices and other ideas we try on the golf course