Collar and green outside pass aeration

During wet times, the thatch holds water and won’t let it drain down through the soil profile. By itself, the extra water is not deadly, it only causes minor issues and is not great to play on. However, if the turf must endure some significant heat, while also being too wet, then that is when grass will die. Sound familiar? This is exactly the scenario that played out in mid to late June. The end of May and early June were very wet, but then 10 of the last 12 days of June were above 90 degrees including a stretch of 5 days in a row above 95 degrees. The rain continued in July, when we were 4 inches above normal rainfall for the month. Most of the collars survived this stretch, and even the areas that died didn’t all die at this time, but they were drastically weakened as summer progressed.

                                             

We worked diligently to repair the worst areas on the collars with increased nutrition, seed, extra water and with sod work is upcoming. But the best and fastest way to manage an excessive thatch problem is to aerate. Physically removing the material from the profile and we can start to gain on the issue. It does not happen overnight; it must be part of a program that continues to attack the thatch. Last week we performed a very targeted aeration procedure as part of this program. Using the same style of mini tines that we used during spring aeration, we made one loop around the greens aerating the collar and just onto the green, and then finished all of the collar across the front. We removed this material by hand, blew away any left-over debris, and rolled to close the holes. We finished all greens in one day.

One area of the golf course that struggled this past summer was the collars. Several factors contributed to the stress, most notably the very difficult weather, but another factor was excess thatch. Last week we made progress in removing some of this thatch to improve the turf for next year and beyond.

Too much thatch, which is decaying stems, leaves, and other plant material, in any turf can be bad: holding too much water, not absorbing any water, and causing puffiness. Sometimes, only one of these issues can be managed and not cause too much trouble. However, this past summer, certain areas on the collars suffered with all three negative aspects of thatch in the same season, which proved too much to handle.

Then once August hit the rain stopped. The temperatures were lower than June, but intense nonetheless, and this proved to be too much for the turf. The alternative to thatch holding too much water in wet stretches is that during dry stretches, it actually becomes hydrophobic and won’t absorb any water. So, now the opposite of the initial issue of June and July struck the turf: we couldn’t get water to the roots because the thatch repelled some of the water applied. We are prepared for this situation and apply wetting agents that break the surface tension of water and allow it to infiltrate the soil. But in this case, with the turf already stressed, all it took was one afternoon of heat and lack of water and the turf began to die.

                                                        

This is only the first step in working to get the collars more resilient for future weather extremes. But it takes all these small changes to make improvements to the long term health of the turf.

 

 

We will be reducing down to 1 post per month starting in November. Thank you

 

 

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please rake your entire disturbance within the bunker, including all of your footprints, not just the area from where you hit.

 

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

Golf Cart tips

 

 

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org