Sand Injection

With the new addition to the maintenance fleet we have already started to implement the machine on some of our trouble some greens. Here in the photos is the process of injecting dry sand into to the top two inches of the green. In some of the previous post I talked about the importance if diluting our organic material that has developed. It is a sandy process but with a little help from mother nature or our back pack blowers we should have a clean surface in a few days. In the next few weeks we plan on doing the #6 green and #8 green.

Greens

  The weather has turned around for a brief moment just when it feels good it turns cold again. As it has been getting warmer the greens have grown a little and we just mowed our second cut of the year, coupled with a roll to smooth out the surface. Before we know it, its back to everyday mowing. The second picture is to just illustrate a side view of the mower which uses a cone reel with knives attached that spin and with a fixed bed knife. The same cutting action is very similar to how scissors operate.

  Just a friendly reminder, it is the beginning of the year and I have noticed ball marks not being repaired, so please if you see them repair them for the golfer behind you!

Top dressing and Round up

As the title states these really do not go hand and hand but they do for us. We have started our annual top dressing program for the greens in conjunction with our scheduled aerification dates.  Well the question is, Why do we top dress? To answer that simply is first and foremost we want to dilute the organic material that develops through out the growing season. When we aerify the greens twice a year we are physically pulling that material out and replacing it with clean sand. Because we only do this two times a year it is important to use other methods.  The second reason is to keep the greens firm so they will accept shots and roll true. If we chose not to apply light top dressing then there would be an organic layer developing which in turn will impact the greens profile such as drainage and firmness.

Now I wanted to bring up the round up stick we have been using on the greens and collars. I know from the previous post it did not turn out well but I wanted to show you what the spots will look like after about 10 days. As seen in the photos to the right.

One last thing about the greens, we have acquired a machine to blow in top dressing material into the greens, we are working on the final tuning of it but should be extremely helpful on diluting the organic material I mentioned before. Please note the light colored new sand in the picture, this is the outcome. Once up and running I plan to do our troubling greens first then on to the rest of the course. I would like to add this practice would disappear in a few days during the growing season.

Bunker work has re-commenced

This is a photo of the #11 left green side bunker drainage pipe that we discovered was a problem. We had an issue with drainage and did some exploratory work and found that the entire pipe was compromised with willow roots and organic matter. On the far right of the picture that is the root cluster that is actually about 10 feet long with a diameter of 4 inches. As soon as we pulled this out it solved our problem. So we decided since we are in here any way to go ahead and remove the lower part of the bunker which has been contaminated with silt and replace with clean bunker sand.

With the beginning of the season it is time for us to walk all greens and approaches searching for poa. What you see in the bottom two pictures is a round up stick similar to a bingo blotter. We use this to dab the small poa plants that have invaded our bent grass. Essentially once the round-up has taken effect it will look like a ball mark. This practice is essential in keeping our greens poa free.