Catching up

Hard to believe it is Memorial Day. This spring is flying by. I have taken lots of pictures with my phone to encourage a topic for this blog and just have not found the time to sit down and write them up. So I will rummage through the folders and toss out some random thoughts I had.

Root pruning works

I put a dark shadow right on the trench line in the photo above to help show the difference. This is on the right side of 1 green and it clearly shows how the turf recovers and also suffers from tree root competition. We did several areas around the course and I need to do several more. Trees and grass just don't play nice together.

seed head suppression at it's finest. left side white rt. side green

I could not get the transition line to work on this photo but if you look close you can see a clear difference between the right side of the picture and the left. This was the 6th approach and the green and a small part of the approach was sprayed with a chemical to reduce seed heads of annual blue grass, Poa Annua. If the Poa does not use up a lot of energy producing seed heads it is believed to be a stronger plant and able to survive other stresses, heat, drought etc, better. It also makes for a better putting surface if it is not allowed to seed. The fairways are white with seed heads while the greens and collars remain green. This was many weeks ago and because of the Topsy turvy weather we have had the Poa is seeding a bit again right now. See if you can spot some the next time you play.

Mushrooms on a tee after a rain storm

yellow tree pollen after a rain storm

Many of you have had to deal with new septic regulations in various towns where they require regular inspections. I have heard some horror stories of people having their yards torn up to try and locate their covers and distribution boxes. Well our number came up and luckily for us we had a pretty good idea where they were, helps when you are the one to install them, and I also made up some corner bounds with steel so I could find them with a metal detector. More good news is they passed.

clubhouse d-box

course bathroom d-box and leach field in front of blue tee

weeds in the tall grass before

weeds in the tall grass after herbicide

Love the shrivel of the weeds after an application to control them. At least you know it worked. Fairways have been done and most of the fescue areas also. Now all I have left is about 12 acres of rough to clean up. Hopefully this week if we can get more than five minutes without showers predicted.