Basics of blog and much needed rain.

I felt like a celebrity yesterday. As I was spiking tees I had the opportunity to run into most of the ladies day groups and just about everyone had a positive comment about last weeks blog post. I appreciate the feedback and the mass email sharing that a few of you had done with the group at large. One of the more interesting observations I had was how it was a new experience for many so I thought I would give a little history of the blog. I told the story to many of you yesterday how one of our board members, Georgie White, had said to me this spring "Matt I love the blog but you need to do it more often" I explained to her that I update weekly and have since the beginning. Another person said it was the first she heard of it, to which I said "I have mentioned it in every one of my newsletter articles for the last two years". So obviously "what we have here is a failure to communicate" I will attempt to get the word out even more. If you wish to get an email every time I add a new post there is a sign up location on the main page to the right of the post just below the Turfnet widget labeled follow by email. The stats on the blog as of this morning are:
198 total posts
1st one 12/11/10
most popular with 425 views is Root pruning in January
1,074 page views last month
20,549 views all time
All of the posts are archived so you can read past ones. They are also tagged with a label such as storms or product applications so you can see specific posts by category. Most have pictures to illustrate a point. Some are better than others. I started the blog to update members of the bunker rebuilding we were doing on the 7th hole and have continued posting projects and everyday occurrences around the property.
We received some much needed rain last night and combined with the cool weather we should start to see some recovery of the dry and dinged up areas of the course. Some will take more than one storm and two days of cool weather and we have addressed some of them with cultural practices (spiking, aerifying, seeding).
 

deep tine aerification hole with healthy root

 

Will blowing sand off practice bunker face

 "If you wish to get an email every time I add a new post there is a sign up location on the main page to the right of the post just below the Turfnet widget labeled follow by email."

worst Dollar Spot damage ever, rough on 1 tees

8th ladies tee bentgrass hammered with several diseases

"But we spray our tees and some have a fair amount of bentgrass and they still suffered damage. Hard to fight Mother Nature and sometimes the elements win out."

4 back tee with decorative fungus damage  Fair Ring is my guess

The basic philosophy behind turf management in northern climates is that creeping bentgrass is king and annual bluegrass (poa) is a weed and all attempts should be made to eliminate it. The thought is that poa is a weaker plant and requires more water, fertilizer, fungicides, insecticides, everything basically to survive. This was certainly evident during the week from hell with temps in the 90's and high humidity. But we spray our tees and some have a fair amount of bentgrass and they still suffered damage. Hard to fight Mother Nature and sometimes the elements win out. We do have a success story however in that our attempts to convert our greens to bentgrass and the programs we are using on them have made them better and holding up well. 

The picture below shows  a ring of sod on 2 green we used from the nursery to patch a peel-out from a four wheeler in 2002. Our nursery at the end of the range is mostly bentgrass now even though it was started with plugs from the greens. The top picture is from 2008 and you can see the darker bentgrass in a ring and in the center. We have only been trying to convert for a couple of years now. The bottom picture is from this week and clearly shows the progress of bent out competing the poa. The bent has more dew and looks lighter in this picture. You can see my footprints in bottom right

green was 90% poa in top photo and maybe 45% in lower