Upcoming aeration

It is nearly aeration time again. It feels as though the summer has moved quickly. Starting August 2^nd thru August 4^th, we will be punching holes in greens, tees, fairways, approaches, and soccer fields.

Our last core aeration (meaning material was removed) was in March on the greens. Several months of heavy golfer traffic, and a couple months of stressful weather has passed since then. This is our normal timing for this process, and it fits well into our turfgrass health program as well as the overall calendar of the club.

Aerating the turf now provides some much-needed relief. Especially for the greens, the chance to get oxygen into the rootzone, is crucial. The Bermuda grass also benefits from the oxygenation. Since this is the only time of the year that we aerate the Bermuda grass, it is critical for overall health. We also take this time to apply our second round of compost. With the Bermuda grass growing vigorously, the organic material in the compost will be great food for the turf and the soil microbes.

Timing the process now also works well for our golf calendar. While our aeration takes places earlier than most courses, it works very well for us. Generally, August is one of our slowest golf months. The heat is still potent, international organization staffs, especially IMF take some time off (pre-Covid at least), and our outside events and tournament lineup is minimal. So, the disruption of aerating and closing portions of the course is impacting the fewest people possible.

Thank you for your patience as we tackle this very necessary task. Please check in with the Golf Shop or website to see what areas are open each day.

 

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please enter and exit all bunkers on the low side. While this may result in slightly more distance to rake, it will keep the sod on the face of the bunker from tearing. It is also much safer! Thank you.

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

 

 

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org

Watering after rain- review

This is a post that was originally posted back in 2018. That season was a record wet year. We are nowhere near those totals this season, but the discussion regarding when to water following a rain event is pertinent at any time. 

Deciding when to water after rain is one of the most difficult nuances of turf management. Wait too long, and the turfgrass can suffer from drought. Water too soon, and many different problems associated with over saturation come into play. This has been an especially difficult summer for making this decision.

Starting back in spring, the rain came often. This is a poor time for the greens to receive too much water. While springs are usually “wet”, above normal rainfall can be detrimental to plant development.  Ideally, in the spring, we force the roots to drive down into the soil to find more water, by controlling water availability and depth. Instead they easily found adequate supplies much nearer the surface because of the rain. The roots were “lazy”; they didn’t have to search for food and water so they never grew deep.

Flash forward to currently, and the roots are even shorter after a long and stressful summer. Traffic (golfer and maintenance), heat, humidity, pests, and poor oxygen exchange have all contributed to the ever-shrinking root system, which happens naturally during the summer regardless. We use all available strategies to keep as much root mass as possible for as long as possible, but by this time of year it is at its smallest and weakest, so the plant takes up all nutrients and water closer to the surface.

How does all of this correspond to watering after a rain storm? As the rain infiltrates the soil and percolates down through the profile, for a certain period of time it is in the rootzone, where the plants can access it. Once it is past this zone, the water is of no use to the turf. With the current short roots of late summer, the uptake zone is very small. So even though the ground may feel wet, or it may have rained only two days prior, the plants may still need some supplemental water because the rain water is no longer available.

With the heat and humidity of late summer, adding more water can be the worst thing to do. You can read here about what too much water can do and the diseases to which it can lead. However, plants that are suffering from drought stress need water to stay alive, no matter what other conditions may be present. So, we use all of the tools and resources we have to determine where water is needed and accurately apply it to those locations only and in only the amount needed for survival. The extra difficulty of this season arises from the fact that we have been fighting these watering decisions since the middle of July.  The volume of rain that we have received since the middle of July has been unprecedented and therefore caused a tough summer to turn into a very difficult summer.

Nevertheless, greens have held up reasonably well and have bounced back from aeration. Once we get a break from the humidity and get some cooler nights, recovery can begin.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please enter and exit all bunkers on the low side. While this may result in slightly more distance to rake, it will keep the sod on the face of the bunker from tearing. It is also much safer! Thank you.

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

 

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org

Water usage

We are still trending drier than normal, despite a couple recent storms. This is reflected in the water usage report we just completed.

We are required to report our water usage to the state twice a year. We report how much water we use total, based on a flow meter in our irrigation pump house. When applicable, we also report if we have to pump water out of the Potomac River to refill the pond on #17, and if so, how much water we pump. We have not had to pump yet this year, but the water report shows we are ahead of our usage pace from last season.

The pond on #17 has been low for a couple of months now. With very little rainfall to naturally replenish it, it provides a quick visual that it has been dry overall- from May to early July- which is reflected in the numbers. From January 2020 thru June 2020, we used about 3.6 million gallons of water. In comparison, during the same period for 2021, we used about 5.3 million gallons, for a difference of about 1.7 million gallons.

While these are large numbers and represent a huge quantity of water, our usage is greatly reduced because we have many acres of Bermuda grass. Bermuda grass actually loves water and can handle wet conditions very easily, but one of its greatest attributes is how well it can perform in drought conditions also. During dry stretches we can greatly reduce the amount of water we use on the Bermuda grass to conserve for other areas, like the putting greens. This is exactly what we have done- minimize the amount of water applied, especially to fairways, and judicially apply to everything else.

Every season is different in many ways, including the need for watering. We have used more water in other seasons, and first and second halves within a season can vary greatly. But for now, the numbers back up what we have seen out in the field- it has been a dry first half of 2021.

 

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please enter and exit all bunkers on the low side. While this may result in slightly more distance to rake, it will keep the sod on the face of the bunker from tearing. It is also much safer! Thank you.

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

 

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org

Interesting picture

We are very busy in maintenance mode right now and the course is doing good. So, this week's blog is a quick discussion regarding an interesting picture taken recently.

First, it was and continues to be dry. Despite the last couple of days, which have featured rain, overall, we are several inches behind normal. May was 2” behind normal and June was another 3”. When we start falling that far behind several things become apparent: the inefficiencies of the irrigation system, that trees easily out-compete turfgrass for water, and even the most drought tolerant grasses get dry.

No irrigation system is designed to hold up during significant droughts. Irrigation is a supplement, and bridge, between rain events. When we must rely on irrigation alone for long stretches, the places of poor or no coverage become apparent. More information regarding dry stretches and its affects can be found here and here.

Trees tend to vacuum up all the resources in their vicinity. Their root systems are extensive and can gather much more than grass. Under normal conditions, there is enough water for the tree and turf to survive. But, when drought conditions settle in, the first place to spot it is around the base of trees because the grass under the tree cannot get enough water anymore because the tree is taking it all.

Bermuda grass is a drought and heat tolerant grass. Compared to most turf species, Bermuda grass’s root system is robust. However, even Bermuda grass still needs water. This leads us to the interesting picture mentioned above:

 

 

This picture is interesting for a couple of reasons: First, the brown grass on the tee is dry Bermuda grass. It is behind on its water needs and has started to enter dormancy. Once it receives some water it will turn green again and resume growth, but until then it is conserving its resources. Second, notice how there is a straight line across the tee- the far side of the line is where the Bermuda grass is brown and the near side has green grass. Mother nature does not often work in straight lines. So, what is going on? This line is soil related and points all the way to when this tee was rebuilt during Master Plan construction. The dry half is within the boundary of the tee box and was constructed of 90% sand, while the near side is built on native soil. Water moves through the sand much quicker and therefore dries out much faster than the native soil.

Sometimes, it is like trying to solve a puzzle when we see changes out on the course. Luckily, knowing the underlying soil characteristics made understanding this picture much easier.

 

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please enter and exit all bunkers on the low side. While this may result in slightly more distance to rake, it will keep the sod on the face of the bunker from tearing. It is also much safer! Thank you.

 

 

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

  

 

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org