With the on set of the extremely hot and humid temperatures there comes a time when you need to play a little defense. At this point in time we are experiencing our typical issues on the 8th green. This green has been a problem this past summer and continues to be a problem this year. This green is sloped from back right to front left. When we do get rain the water drains towards the front of the green causing the lower half to take a while to dry down and exit the drainage pipe. Couple that with no air circulation and shade by 4:00pm and you have a recipe for turf canopy decline. We can control the irrigation water that we apply but we cannot contend with mother nature and the surrounding hills to the left of the green, which is where the predominate winds hail from. So to help us aid in air flow we have set up a portable blower to help alleviate some of the stress the green is under in the bottom part of the green. Bentgrass performs very well when soil temperatures are in the 50 -65 degree range. When you get above 80 degrees (soil temps) roots begin to start there declining process which occurs every year. This is why it is very important to have a good root system to help during the hotter part of the summer. As the soil temperatures rise to above 90 degrees and higher then you have root systems that just do not function at all and the grass dies. As you see the temperature taken on the 8th green. Not good. So a fan would greatly benefit this area of the course in the future to help promote drying and air flow and in turn reducing the soil temperatures to an acceptable level.
The other photo is the syringe process we use on all of the greens during this stressful time to help cool down the turf grass canopy and promote transpiration.
