A Whirlwind of Activities Completed

It's been a week (or I should say less than a half week) of frenetic pace as we completed several "winterization" tasks. The forecast is showing temperatures to fall into the teens overnight Thanksgiving into Friday, and remain below freezing thereafter, for at least a couple days. These extended low temperatures will likely begin to freeze the soil surface and so in essence, it was time to "put the course to bed".
In the last three days we've accomplished:

• Deep, Solid Tine Aeration of Greens
• Rolling to Smooth (Greens)
• Sand Topdressing & Brushing (Greens)
• Plant Protectant Applications for Snow Mold Diseases (Greens, Tees, Fairways, & Bunker Faces)
• Late-Season Nutrient Applications (Greens, Tees, Approaches & Fairways)
• Covering of Greens and several Tees
• Winterizing Irrigation System
• Renovation of Tee Surrounds at No. 10. (near completion)

 Jacob (on #2 Grn) and Rafa (on #13 Grn) performing Deep Aeration (1/2" dia. x 10" deep)

Having second tractor/aerator unit (our much older unit was down for repairs several times during process) was compliments of  Lake Shore Country Club and Supt., Jeff Frentz. This was a HUGE help and we couldn't have completed all we needed to this week without, "getting by with a little help from  our friends" !

 Channels created will aide moisture movement off surface and provide oxygen and gas exchange during winter months, and help allow deeper root growth in spring.

Rolling followed Deep Aeration and then Sand Topdressing (shown above) followed. Applying sand now helps protect the crowns of the turf (the point where shoot growth originates) throughout winter.

 

 Brushing, (to smooth and incorporate sand) followed Topdressing.

 

 Plant Protectant Applications followed to guard against Snow Mold Diseases. All Greens, Tees, Approaches, Fairways, and Bunker Faces were treated.

 

 Ryan applies Nutrients (mostly slow release for early spring availability) after Plant Protectant App. had dried. Similar nutrient applications were also applied to Tees, Approaches, Fairways, Green and Tee Surrounds, and high traffic areas in the Rough.

 Final Greens task was placing and securing Greencovers.

Staples are used to secure them and they cannot be installed once the ground is frozen. Hence the urgency this week, as temps will soon be falling sharply!

 Winterizing Irrigation System - Compressed air is used to "blow out" all lines, sprinkler heads, pump station equipment, and pond fill lines.

It was a little cold outside the last couple days! 

Ice formation from a nearby sprinkler being activated to blow out water.

 Sneaking in an improvement project before the ground freezes (and sod becomes unavailable)

Replacing contaminated sod on slope surrounding No. 10 tees. 

 

Old tie steps and dated landscape was removed to provide a look more similar to all of our other tees. A small set of rough timber steps will be installed if deemed necessary in future.

Greens "Put to Bed" and ready for a long winter's nap!

With it being Thanksgiving today I can't help thinking about the many things I'm thankful for, but one for sure is my terrific Grounds Operation Staff. Time and time again during this challenging year, they have answered the call. Whatever the situation; from ice in the winter; to floods in the spring (and again in summer); to heat in the summer; to tournament preparations and recovery tasks; to completing myriad special projects; and now to multiple winterization tasks in a few short days, over and over again they have answered the call of duty!

I couldn't be more thankful! 

Happy Thanksgiving to All! 

Winterizing the Course

We certainly had a bonus regarding the weather this past weekend. Aside from a little frost delay, the days turned out sunny and mild and it was great to see a good bit of "late season" play. Was it the last good weather weekend? Time will surely tell, but as Thanksgiving approaches, the inevitable cold, snow, and frozen soil, looms on the horizon and our focus this past weekend turned to preparing the course for winter.

A frosty start to a beautiful weekend. Hopefully not the last! 

Winterizing the course actually began a few weeks ago with nutrient applications targeted to extend photosynthesis (which improves energy storage) as well as strengthen the turf plants aiding cold stress tolerance. These applications were completed on all turf areas (greens, tees, fairways, rough) and while they are very important, our activities over the weekend were essential and included clearing water from the irrigation system, the tennis court sprinkler system, and drinking water lines, and applying plant protection products to greens, tees, and fairways to prevent winter disease activity.
The process of clearing the irrigation system and other water lines involves attaching an air compressor capable of producing a large volume of air to the main line pipe at the pump station and then actuating every head (nearly 2000 now) individually, until all water is "blown" free. Additionally, manual coupling valves are cleared and the pump station is thoroughly drained.

The big "Blower"...a 750 Cubic Feet / Minute Compressor 

Adding some mist to the morning...an almost clear sprinkler 

All clear...until next spring 

Our other critically important "winterization" task is plant protectant applications to prevent two potentially damaging diseases. There are fungi that can cause disease at any time of the year, and the early winter through spring period is unfortunately no exception.

 Plant Protection in Action

A very common disease active during our current cool and damp conditions (and continuing until warm temperatures return next spring) is a disease called Microdochium Patch.

 

 Microdochium Patch (photo fortunately not from SCC!)

When snow cover eventually occurs, another less common but more destructive disease is called Typhula Blight, or more commonly known as Gray Snow Mold. Snow cover actually provides an insulating layer for this fungi, preventing it from drying out.

 

Typhula Blight (photo fortunately not from SCC!)

Microdochium Blight - (this one is from #17 at SCC -now treated!)

These two diseases are generally our main off season concern and the primary targets of our late fall/winter preventive plant protectant applications.

Additional winterizing tasks include deep tine aeration and sand topdressing of the greens (which began today) and covering of the greens and several tees prior to freezing conditions. Hopefully these "freezing conditions" are still several weeks away!

Moisture Deficit, Irrigation Status, & Fairy Rings.

Moisture Deficit:
After record rainfall earlier in the year, the past 6 weeks have been quite dry. July’s total rainfall was only about 1”. Average rainfall for July, is approx. 3.7”, so the deficit was 2.7”. The first 2 weeks in August were also very dry with only about 0.33”. This week we have had some welcomed rains, but until now, we were experiencing a fairly large moisture deficit.

The lack of moisture is evident below. This picture also shows the negative impact trees have on turf, as this tree is winning the battle for water. The healthier green rough 'outside' of the rectangular shape benefited from root pruning - a benefit from the installed irrigation pipe.

Irrigation Status:
In a warmer year, this deficit would have been more noticeable on fairways and especially bunker faces. However, our new irrigation system has performed quite well, as we’ve been able to irrigate easily and with more selectivity. We’ve been fine tuning the system lately; adjusting arc’s, spray trajectories, run times, flow rates, and developing irrigation programs for all areas. We still have much to do, but we’re making good progress. We’re already watering much more uniformly and accurately than ever before, but this “fine tuning” will allow us to be as efficient as possible with irrigation inputs.

One thing hasn’t changed - even the best irrigation system doesn’t seem to have the same benefit as rainfall. Rain infiltrates better, doesn’t miss many places, and is free, but in its absence, our irrigation system provides us options that rainfall cannot. Of course the main option is placing water where we want, and when we want. This past Derby was a prime example.

The flexibility of the system gives us options we've never had before.

In the 2 weeks prior to Derby we watered fairways, approaches, and greens very seldom, since our new system would provide rapid re-hydration in these areas when needed. In the meantime, we maintained regular watering of tees, green banks, roughs, and high traffic areas. This was something we couldn’t do in the past and allowed us to provide firm and fast conditions and new challenges from those in the past. Many of you commented favorably about the ground and turf conditions.

The ball roll, the opportunity to play bump and run shots, the need to think more about club selection, conserving water, reducing electrical costs and equipment wear to pump it, and more, are all nice benefits to firmer, drier conditions. Aside from the “less green or more brown” color (which may appear to some as unhealthy when in fact it’s not, it’s just slightly dormant), one issue I’d like to discuss that is more prevalent when dry is a disease called Fairy Ring.

Fairy Ring:
I’ve written about this disease in the past as it’s been active on many of our greens and fairways over the last several years, but with it becoming more noticeable recently, I thought it would be an apropos blog topic.

In 2006, Fairy Ring became a big problem on many greens. Below is Type I (brown to dead rings) Fairy Ring, which causes hydrophobic conditions in the soil leading to severe wilt stress.

Fairy Ring is the common name given to this little understood and highly complex (more than 50 different fungi have been isolated) turf disease that expresses itself in three different ways; green rings, green rings with multiple stunted mushrooms, and brown to dead rings. We’ve had all three here in the past. The green ring phase is not deadly to turf but it does cause the soil to become hydrophobic or water repellent and the rings often become depressed leading to an uneven surface with high and low spots. This can affect your stance and shot making ability.

Other, less injurious Fairy Ring examples.
Practice Green
#18 Fairway

Complete control of Fairy Ring, with a given cultural or chemical treatment, has not been realized so a multiple faceted approach is needed to manage this disease and keep its deleterious results to a minimum. Our approach utilizes several processes including; aeration, needle tine ventilation, wetting agents, judicious handwatering, nutrient application, and fungicide treatments both prior to symptoms in early spring and after any occurrences in mid-summer.

Aeration provides holes to help water infiltrate into hydrophobic areas of the soil.

All of these management tools and techniques are employed for the greens, but the size of the fairways adds costs to an already tight budget. Our early spring fungicide applications on greens have shown very good results (better than post occurrence treatments) in minimizing the development of the “brown to dead ring” phase that we’ve often seen when we didn’t preventively treat. With fungicide treatment the less damaging “green ring” phase is most common on the putting greens, and we can often mask this cosmetic appearance with macro and micronutrient applications.

With the general rainfall deficit and our intentional “drier, firmer, faster” conditioning, the drier fairways have shown an increased amount of “green ring” fairy ring and the associated depressed areas, but also a few locations where the “brown to dead ring” phase has begun. We have recently aerated and applied wetting agents to help offset the hydrophobic soil conditions on a few fairways and we will continue to monitor all others and perform similar operations as needed to minimize any playability issues and/or turf damage. The one management item we did not perform this year (due to cost saving measures), is an early preventive fungicide treatment on fairways which may have helped reduce the amount of fairy ring. Perhaps next year, with the Western Amateur Championship taking place here at about the same time of year that Fairy Ring typically becomes most prevalent, a prudent decision would be to apply at least one early season preventive fungicide treatment.

The Mysterious Footprints

A few members have recently asked questions about the odd yellow to brown footprints noticeable on a few greens. They were very good questions indeed, and to be completely honest, they are a bit of a mystery to us. We’ve considered various possible reasons and analyzed the conditions leading up to these blemishes, but there are still several unexplainable facts.

Footprints on #2 approach and green (photo was digitally enhanced for visibility).

Here’s how the “mystery footprints” story goes:

In our ongoing quest to provide you with high quality putting surfaces, we apply plant protectants to the greens on a weekly basis. As mentioned in an earlier 'Pest Management' blog (available here), plant protectants include many items such as nutrients, micronutrients, fungicides, plant growth regulators, and biostimulants, to name a few. These weekly applications are usually made on Friday’s so that if high stress conditions, (high heat & humidity - which can induce certain fungal activity leading to disease and turf loss) were to occur on a busy weekend, we would not interfere with play by conducting emergency spray applications.

Two weeks ago we made a routine plant protectant application which included nutrients, biostimulants (sea-weed extract, plant hormones, vitamins), and plant growth regulators. We’ve used all of these products in the past, but this time we added half rates of two different plant growth regulators instead of the full rate of just one. This is the only difference from past applications. We’ve applied this mixture many times before on fairways but not on the greens. However, these same products and mixtures have been, and continue to be, used at other courses in our area and even at much higher rates than we typically use. We wanted to be very cautious and use very low rates initially, as these are very active compounds (1 ounce per acre). In time, we would then increase rates to normal recommended levels.

You may ask, “Why do we need a mixture of growth regulators”? I could write a multi-page blog on this topic alone, but basically, the varying types are used to provide two modes of action and two different responses. One type slows the vertical growth causing the turf plants to grow more compact (more consistent green speed by slowing the growth from morning into the evening), while the other type helps lateral growth, aiding in recovery from ball marks and wear.

Close up of footprints

The application went well with no problems encountered during the procedure, and there were no unusual environmental conditions that day. The putting surfaces were finally starting to dry out a bit, with several days of windy conditions preceding this treatment, but nothing at all stressful to the turf.

Two days later we noticed these peculiar, off-colored footprints appearing and upon a thorough inspection of all greens, it appeared as though 7 greens had these mysterious footprints. We of course, became concerned and began to speculate. Was it happening that day? Was it something from a previous day? Was it caused by a golfer (it looked like the prints were going to and from a previous hole location)? Was it something that we recently sprayed and then walked over to replace the flagstick after making the application? The questions really started to flow.

Perhaps it was this “new to the greens” growth regulator mixture that was a little phytotoxic (damaging to plants) when traffic was present immediately after application? However, the same mixture was used on all greens, so why was it not more wide spread and only on 7 greens? Four tank mixtures are needed to treat all the greens. As we reviewed our records and recalled the process, there was no clear indication that any one tank mixture was the problem. Footprints occurred on greens from 3 different tank mixtures, but not all of the greens treated with these tanks were affected. Very puzzling indeed!

We contacted suppliers of products and reviewed our tank mixtures and were reassured that these problems had not occurred with our same tank mix recipe at anywhere in the past. And, as I mentioned before we have applied these same products to fairways and in fact, the same week applied 4 times the rate (still well below maximum rates) of these same products to our fairways, with no signs of traffic or mystery footprint damage!

We thought about other possibilities as to the cause and considered that perhaps it was something on the applicators shoes, maybe a spill in the mix area that picked up on his shoes and he unknowingly tracked it onto the greens. This would explain multiple tanks being involved but why not all the tanks, and also, there was no obvious spill during the mixing process! And, if something were perhaps, on the floor board (carried by the shoes of the applicator) of the sprayer, why then would there be 2 sets of footprints on one of the greens, coming from persons from 2 different vehicles. Any CSI’s out there?

It’s usually at about this point in a mystery story where a clue finally surfaces that allows the mystery to become unraveled and solved. Problem is… we think we have thought through all possible scenarios, and we don’t have any other clues!

So, as we continue to scratch our heads and ponder the cause of these mysterious footprints, fortunately we can take a little comfort knowing that, at least, the damaged areas were limited and they do appear to be recovering.

A Snapshot of Pest Management

With the weather warming, the greens now open and more play, we are entering that frenzied time of year. Because of this and being away last week for training and testing, there was little time to add new posts. However, I found some time to write during the rain early this week. The training and testing refers to the renewal process for plant protectant applicator licensing, and I wanted to cover this topic while it is fresh in my mind.

In this and future posts, we’ll be covering many different topics and practices we routinely perform on the golf course throughout the year. One very comprehensive and technical practice that is performed in every season of the year, in varying degrees, is that of Pest Management.

The word “Pest” generally brings up thoughts of bugs to most, but on the golf course it means much more. The types of pests we’re concerned with are extensive and often include:

• Diseases
  
• Injurious & Nuisance Insects
• Mites
• Broadleaved & Grassy Weeds
• Algae
  
• Aquatic Weeds
  
• Rodents
  
• Nematodes
  
• Undesirable Fish species
  
• Undesirable Bird species
• Some species of Mammals
  

We’ll likely write about these in detail at some point. For today’s post, let’s just say some of these are very difficult to manage, some are relatively easy to manage, but nearly all require specialized training, certification (satisfactory testing), and licensing by the State of Illinois to apply control products such as pesticides or plant protectants.

The term pesticide is any product that kills a pest. Some examples include:

• Fungicides - control fungi (diseases)
• Herbicides - control weeds
  
• Insecticides - control insects
• Algaecides - control algae

A more appropriate term we use for these products is "plant protectants". This is used because in many of our spray mixtures we apply, the actual pesticide component may be very small or even non-existent. Other products such as fertilizers, micronutrients, wetting agents, bio stimulants, vitamins, sea plant extracts, and plant growth regulators, often make up the bulk of our spray mixtures.

Knowing how to properly read a label is as important as the application of the material and understanding how it works. In addition to the info in this picture, other information found in labels include target pests, rates, restrictions, & environmental information.

Our strategy for controlling pests doesn’t begin with grabbing a product off the shelf and applying in to a given turf, tree, or landscape area. It begins with an entire integrated program we use called, Integrated Pest Management or IPM. IPM is the most efficient and environmentally safe approach to pest control. It includes non-chemical and chemical control methods such as:

• Cultural control – improving plant health with proper mowing, fertility, irrigation, selecting resistant varieties, aeration, topdressing, pre-plant soil preparation, proper planting, mulching, and more.
• Mechanical – physical elimination of the pests by; cultivation, pruning, manual removal, burning (prairie areas).
• Biological – control utilizes living organisms such as predators (promoting insect feeding birds such as bluebirds), and using beneficial fungi that attacks certain injurious insects.
• Chemical – control using approved plant protectants, at proper time and rate, and rotating with different mode-of-action chemistries to avoid resistance issues.
  

We consider these when we design our pest control programs but also consider many other factors including: Understanding Plant Protectants, Application Equipment (sprayers & spreaders), Calibration and Calculations, Product Labels, Drift Reduction (preventing movement of products to non-target areas), Applicator and Public Safety, Environmental Concerns, and Plant Protectant Laws and Regulations.

As you can see, Pest Management is quite involved and a critically important course management activity that we conduct regularly. The IL Dept. of Agriculture is the lead agency that regulates the various plant protectants we use to control pests, and they also conduct the training, certification testing, and licensing.

For a two day period every three years, we’re involved with this training and testing so we can not only retain our legal right to purchase and apply necessary products, but also to refresh our current knowledge, and remain informed of the latest pest occurrences’, control methods and products, and laws and regulations.

The importance of pest management education can never be over emphasized. This is what can happen when carelessness and a lack of education combine during a plant protectant spray - a lot of dead turf! (Don't worry... this is not Skokie CC!)

It was a long two-day period for me, as I was required to take 4 tests, to retain the appropriate licenses needed to manage the course and general club property. I’m happy to report I did pretty well with an average score of 94%. All I can think is that some of what the test writers think are the right answers, must be wrong!