Thursday, July 25, 2013

Aerification... Taking one step back to take two steps forward

     Some of you out there may wonder why golf courses seem to always be destroying their greens, tees, and sometimes fairways.  I'v heard it a million times, "You just got the greens looking wonderful and then you go out and punch a bunch of huge holes and throw down way too much sand and it ruins them!!!"  Rest assured golf course superintendents (and myself included) all want their golf course to play perfect each and every day for a long time to come.  It is that exact reason that we aerate; we want the playing conditions to constantly improve.  Sometimes you have to take one step back to move forward to reach your goal. 
 
This is the main reason that we aerate a few times each year...
     You can see the different striations just under the grass.  See that darker brown layer just under the grass?   That is the main reason that the tee boxes at Wildflower golf course took such a hit when it finally decided to warm up this year.  With that much thatch, it is inevitable that your grass is going to become a weak stand sooner than later.  This cut was from #6 Main tee box, and if you've golfed out at Wildflower, you probably noticed how dry #6 looked. 
      These are the main reasons to alleviate thatch in grass:
        1)  When thatch dries out, it becomes HYDROPHOBIC. hydro=water   phobic= repels
        2)  Thatch that stays wet is a perfect breeding ground for fungi
        3)  Excessive thatch can lead to scalping and "puffy" stands of turf
        4)  Elevated levels of thatch actually take the crown (the actively growing part of the plant) up off the soil profile and can lead to pulling out of the crowns and actually rooting just in the thatch.  This problem leads to turf that is easily damaged by mowing, walking and divots taken by normal golf. 
         There are many more reasons to hate thatch, but you do need a small amount (usually around .25 inches) for a healthy stand of grass.  Thatch, although mostly talked about in a negative way, buffers the crowns from temperature extremes and when thatch is broken down on a microbial scale, it adds much needed food for the surrounding plants.  Thatch gets detrimental when it is allowed to build up past the range of normal acceptance. 
       When were talking about thatch becoming hydrophobic, I mean it literally is scared of water.  No matter how much you pour onto the grass, it won't work into the soil because the thatch is so tight and becomes water repellent when it dries out.  Look up professor Larry Stowell, PACE Turf... This guy is amazing!!!!  He has a pretty good YouTube video on why us superintendents aerate.  The use of wetting agents will help alleviate some of the hydrophobicity of the thatch, but if you don't want to add more chemicals to your grass, the only option is aeration.
      The very basis of aerification is simple,  you punch a hole in the ground, fill it with sand, and the magic starts.  Usually taking what's called a "core" from the turf opens up the root zone to let much needed oxygen, water and growing media (sand) into the holes left from pulling the core out of the ground.  This mix of porous sand mixing into the usually organic-matter rich soil also aids the microbes in breaking down even more thatch.  Microbes need oxygen to do their job, just like we all do to survive.  Without oxygen, or in an anaerobic state, means that the microbes aren't doing their job, and then the thatch starts to build up once again.  This is the major reason that we have to continually disturb the soil profile to add oxygen to aid the microbes in breaking down the organic matter.  Another benefit of pulling out cores and filling the holes with sand is that grass roots will take the path of least resistance in search of water and nutrients.  Imagine trying to stick a pencil into compacted clay and good black dirt.  Wouldn't you think that it would be easier to stick that same pencil into sand, and wouldn't that same pencil go deeper and require less work to get deeper?  Now, I know most of us can push a little harder on the pencil than the grass roots can, but aerification holes provide the grass with an easy route down to find more water and more nutrients. 
 
   The grass will fill in, the sand will work it's way into the thatch layer, and the grass will be healthier for all the work we do to destory a beautifully rolling green.
    As I'm writing this, we are finishing up punching the back 9 tees at Wildflower.  Greens will be aerated later this summer, and I look forward to hearing all the complaints of the golfers who didn't get a chance to read my lecture on why I do what I do!!!  We're not the only golf course that aerifies, and I'm certain that my crew loathes the job board when it says aerification just as much as golfers!
 
Keep Hacking-
  Aaron
 
PS-  I welcome comments/complaints!  Please feel free to leave a comment and Ill do my best to get back to you in a timely manner on here!
 
     

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Summer is half over...

Hey all:
     Sorry for such a lapse in posts, we here at Wildflower have been extremely busy since we hit the ground running when we opened.  I am finally getting back in the office and getting things organized for the later half of the summer.  We had a great fourth at the course, with Friday's totals being well over 300 rounds played.  I want to thank you all for coming out and enjoying Wildflower.  Some things that we will be doing/ have been doing in the past few weeks:
     - you may have noticed that #3 green took quite a few steps back and in a hurry.  Last Sunday when we mowed in the morning, there was some LDS (Localized Dry Spot) on #3 and the PG.  When I came back around 3 pm, #3 had taken a huge turn for the worse.  Sorry for my lack of photos, but it's something that I'm not overly proud of.  Monday morning came around after a worried and sleepless night and I decided to go out and spray all 20 greens with what is called a soil surfactant.  At around 16 oz per acre, a little goes a long ways.  I often like to use the phrase : with golf course management, your dealing with thousandths of an inch and ounces per acre."  For those of you out there that don't realize that this is a blend of science and feel,  I encourage you to "read-up" on some of the golf course industry's many publications and blogs!!!
     A week later and #3 is slowly returning back to it's original shape, even thought we raised the HOC back to .155 to deal with some of the high temps and high humidity that was stressing the plants. 
    -  With the addition of the soil surfactant to the greens, we also sprayed all fairways and tees to combat the same problem that #3 green was having.  You may notice on many of the Tee boxes, that there are some severely dry areas.  When the thatch layer ( below the blades and crown of the plant) has the chance to dry out and you have an excessive amount of thatch, there is a tendency of that thatch to become HYDROPHOBIC- which means it is afraid of water.  Any irrigation you try to dump to it just simply runs off to a lower area and doesn't get the chance to work it's way into the soil where it is needed the most.  Our soil surfactant (Dispatch from Aquatrols) helps to relieve the surface tension of the thatch layer and allows the water to penetrate the soil where it is applied, thus relieving some of the stress of LDS.  Now, this isn't a magic bullet, but simply one of the steps in curing LDS on turf.  There are many studies being done showing the added benefits of applying fungicides to turf to not only combat the fungus, but to also strengthen the plant and aid the plant in relieving summer stress and heat stress.  We will try to get out and spray our tees and fwys with a combination of chlorothalonil and propiconazole, two systemic fungicides which work on a broad spectrum of diseases.  With the high consistent temperatures, the high humidity, and the somewhat lack of wind here in DL, there will inevitably be some Dollar Spot popping up; you may notice this disease on the nursery green approach and on some of the tees. 
     Dollar spot is a disease which loves having the sugars that the grass plants exude combined with the dew from the humidity at night not being taken off.  Dew+sugars+not removing dew=dollar spot.  Now this crude formula doesn't mean that anytime you have dew your going to have dollar spot.
    With my assistant being gone all this week and much of next week, our top priority after the Fourth of July will be maintaining the playing conditions with a little bit of irrigation expansion into areas that don't see any irrigation other than what natural rainfall we do get.    Coming from a golf course which ran around 1.3 to 1.4 million gallons of water each night to a golf course which only irrigates the fwys, greens and tees is quite a shock.  I am used to perfectly green from tee to green, and Wildflower was designed to let the rough go dormant in times of drought.  I know there will be some people out there that say, why waste the water on the rough, but you have to understand what a golf course really does for the environment in terms of being a filter for runoff and for the water that runs into our aquifers, lakes and streams.  I'm not overly-environmentally conscious, but every golf course superintendent has it on their agenda to reduce their chemical inputs, reduce their water usage, and overall make the landscape a more enjoyable place each and every day. 
     Our goal is not to expand the irrigation system to accommodate the 100+ acres and all the rough and prairie, but simply to expand the system to help some of the high traffic areas on the course.  There are many areas which receive no irrigation yet are extremely high traffic areas and you can see the consequences of cart traffic on these areas already.  Please accept our apologies for trenching this week, we are only trying to improve the golf course for years to come!!!
   Also- a special thanks to Jerry Johnson for coming out and trapping our little Caddyshack gophers... I think Mr. Johnson snared around 7 pocket gophers, the mnost famous being the gopher on 18 fwy.
   MUCH THANKS MR. JOHNSON!!!!!!