Aeration and rain

We had every intention of this week’s blog focusing solely on aeration. However, in addition to that, we must now also make a note regarding the rain we have had over the last week.

Disease on 8 green. Notice the brown, water
soaked areas. This is the infected turf.

From July 15^th thru July 27^th we received 11.62” of rain, with 10.8” coming in less than a week. That is nearly a foot of rain over a 12-day period. We discussed some of the issues we faced, particularly at the soccer field, last week. However, once the rain finally stopped, the temperature ramped back up. This presented a perfect scenario for disease. Hot temperatures, wet soil, and humid, calm air are the ingredients needed for a disease called Pythium blight. We were aware the conditions were coming and we made a preventive chemical application the day of the worst circumstances. We used a chemical that is labeled for one disease only: Pythium blight. Not even 10 hours after the application, the conditions were so ripe, the disease developed anyway, breaking right through our chemical barrier in 3 localized spots. We then made a very targeted rescue application to those areas: the back of 8 green, the front of 9 green, and the far-right side of 17 green. This rescue application stopped the progression of the disease, but the damage was done. Luckily, we are headed straight into aeration, which is a great time for healing.

Disease area on 9 collar and green

Another angle of 9 collar and green

Starting today, we will be aerating greens, tees, approaches, and fairways. The weather does not look great so we will be accelerating our schedule from past years. We will start with the putting green and front 9 greens. The front 9 will be closed all day, with the back 9 open for play. Those will be the only greens we do Monday. Weather permitting, we will do the chipping green and back 9 greens on Tuesday, with the front 9 open for play. The schedule change is in regards to fairway aeration. We will contract out the work as usual and we will start on the front 9, going in order. However, in years past, we would have stopped after #9 and saved the rest for the next day. But, with the possibility of incoming storms we are going to push to finish all of the fairways in one day. So, the tractors will continue on to #10, etc. and work all day. Please do not attempt to play the hole on which the tractors are working; just skip that hole and move on to the next. We do not want the workers to be in danger of being hit, nor do we want to waste time with them waiting for golfers.

We will be using solid tines on the tees, approaches, and fairways. There will be no material removed from the ground, only a hole punched into it. This technique works well when the ground is somewhat saturated (which ours is), when you don’t want to remove material from turf that is trying to heal (like ours has been all year), or when you want to speed up the process (which we do). We will also be making our annual summer compost application, which has been an important addition to our routine.

We will do our best to minimize the impact to golfers during aeration, but we are also battling mother nature. Aeration is a very important practice, and we are going to push hard for completion as quickly as possible.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please be aware and careful of new sod.

Also, as part of a Golf Committee initiative to improve course etiquette, we have included links to videos teaching proper on course etiquette. Please take a moment to watch:

Ball Marks - How to properly repair

Bunker etiquette

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org