See ya

You know summer is coming to an end and some great fall weather is on the way when football season starts. GO BUCKEYES!

Sod prep

9 ready for sod. The prep job that the Spence crew is doing on the greens is second to none.

Bunkers!

Started working on bunkers today with some of the extra construction crew guys. Now that all the greens are drained, gravel, and mixed, we can start on bunkers.

Core collector

I purchased a core collector that drops all the plugs at the edge of the green. This worked pretty good and might help us scale down on the amount of laborers that it takes us to clean up greens after aeration. It worked good but I have some concern about bruising the grass with the box dragging I will monitor the green to see if the tool had any ill affects on the turf, but right now it looks like this was a great investment

Pg2

Really excited about the performance of PG2 and the 007. It has done fantastic this year, even with all the rain and the hot weather. It is getting time to aerate the green, prepping it for the fall. I am trying some different techniques this time with aerating the green.

We topdressed first, then aerate, then topdress again, roll, water, then drag when dry a day later. We shall we how it works.

Germination

We are starting to see a good amount of germination on the high areas that didn't wash out during last weekend rain storms. The low areas that were re-floated to fix the washouts are a little behind the rest of the green - they are close to greening up though.

Bentgrass normally has a germination time of 7-10 days. We are seeing germination in about 4-5 days. It just looks a little thin to start out because of the lighter seeding rate. It's important to keep the seeding amounts at the proper rate so the seedlings don't choke each other out. A heavy seeding rate will establish faster but will result in a much less healthy stand of grass.

We are going to seed another round of greens this weekend and the remainder will be finished the middle to end of next week.

Germination!

The rain didn't bother the nursery green by #1 because it is so flat and it had some germination already. This green was seeded 6 days ago.

Re-seeding

Reseeding after the washout has been repaired.

Repair work

Re-floating 15 green.

15

Fixing some of the washout on 15 green.

Damage from the storm

I last posted pics of the washout before the additional 1" of rain - here are the pics of the final damage Monday morning. That second storm did the most damage with the washout already started from Saturday.

We had to re-float all the areas that had bad washout and re-seed. The sod around the greens also washed out in a few areas which we have started repairing. One of the worst things of having sand that has already been seeded wash out into the sod is the bent grass that will now germinate in these low areas in the Bermuda grass. We will just have to spend some time spraying out this bent once the Bermuda sod is established. You have to be careful with what you spray on the new sod so you don't set it back.

What is going on?

It's not only raining again but down pouring again for what seems like the 10th time in the past 30 hours. The greens that we have seeded right now are going to need some work in the am. This may include re-floating, raking, seeding and rolling.

Wettest summer in 10 years in Williamsburg - at least in G. Land!

Sent from my iPhone

14 washout

14 washout

15 washout

16 washout

15 washout

Seed washout

This is a picture of the nursery green next to #1 green. It was seeded on Tuesday and started to germinate yesterday. The rain washed out some of the seedlings that just germinated and deposited them on the low area of the green. Not a big deal - we will have to re-rake and re-seed some areas.

Some of the other greens had a little worse washout. Some of these greens will need a possible re-float and rake with some seed but again, not a huge problem.

Some pictures to follow of some of the other greens that got washed out - just another day in the rainforest of Williamsburg.

Pg1 washout

Rain

3.25" of rain yesterday.

Seeding pg1

Seeding pg1 after finishing installing the Zeon Zoysia around the green.

Rolling

Rolling 17

Rolling

Rolling as described in the seeding post.

Raking

Raking greens as described in the seeding post.

Seeding greens

We have seeded the first round greens. When we sees we first go down with about 5 pre-plant products to help provide all the needed nutrients that the new seed needs. After this we rake the entire green, seed in the raked direction at a half rate, rake again in another direction, seen a second time in a different direction, rake a third time, water for a short time and then finally roll the green when the sand has dried to the perfect moisture level. If you roll when it's too dry it makes ruts, and if you roll when it's too wet it will come up in clumps and get sand and seed everywhere you don't want it.

Once the seeding is complete I will set up a program to water each head on a green about 10 min every hour - repeating all day. We should start to see germination in 7-10 days.

9

Finished #9 with mix and moved on to #8.

We seeded the nursery green next to #1 green today. I wanted to get that one done to make sure we have everything calibrated correctly for the golf course greens and develop the sequence that will work the best on these greens. It will be interesting to see how fast this green starts to germinate and grow. We put a pre-plant package of nutrients and a fungicide down to give the seed the best opportunity to germinate and mature rapidly - this was on top of the fertilizer package that we had blended into the mix that the greens are built with.

Now the main thing is to keep water on the new seed. We run the greens heads for 10 min every hour in cycles to insure that there is no puddling or run off - the goal is to keep the seed wet.

Progress

We are getting the Outfalls ready for drainage on #3, mix in on 9 & 10, sod prep on 13 & 12, and sod laid on 15, 14, 13 today. Should be ready to start seeding the first round of greens by the end of the week.

Sod

16 is sodded along with 17. We started 18 and will finish 18, 1 and 15 with the truck on Friday.

We should be ready to seed the first 8 greens by the end of next week if everything goes as planned.

Sod prep

Ready for sod tomorrow 16 & 17. We should be ready to seed the first round of 7-8 greens by the middle to end of next week.

Ready for sod

Ready for sod on 17. We will get a few greens ready for sod then do a truckload a day. We are getting a load on Wednesday and one on Friday.

Sub air

Installing the Subair fittings that will allow us to either suck water out of the greens or blow cool air into the greens.

Prepping surrounds 17

Here is a picture of the surrounds being finished and prepped for sod. Hopefully they still look this good tomorrow after all the rainfall - its pouring now.

Final float 17

Here is a picture of the guys putting the final float on #17 green. We use the water to help compact the sand and get a firm finish.

Irrigation

Digging up some old valves on 11 that are not working and getting them replaced. The irrigation guys are done with all the irrigation loops and tying up some loose ends and working on punch list stuff.

Ryan was the main point of contact for the irrigation guys and did a great job coordinating the irrigation install. Ryan and I took a ride around to go over all the irrigation stuff we still have to complete before the contractors leave. I wanted to get up to speed on the irrigation before Ryan has to leave - I have been pretty busy with the greens construction. Ryan's wife is ready to pop any day with their first baby. I told him golf maintenance company policy was childbirth is only allowed in the winter - his wife didn't care and had a few choice words for me. Should be anyway now.

5 sub base

The sub base all along the back of 5 is humping real bad. We are having to dig down a couple feet throughout the back of the green and replace the black muck with clean fill.

PG2

PG2 still looks really good, even after all the rain followed by hot and humid weather. There are just a few little thin areas on this green - fantastic considering the weather in July and August. This is a very promising result considering this green was not rebuilt. I can't wait to see it on properly constructed greens with a new great mix.

Mix 1

Starting mix instillation on #1. This is the 12" sand/PPM mix that the grass grows in.

8

#8 ready for drainage.

Smile drains

Installing smile drain on #7. Smile drains are installed in all the low areas on greens. These drains help to prevent any water from building up in the low areas of the greens.

Outfalls

Installing the new outfall on #7. The outfall is the pipe that exits the green, allowing all the water that gets into the greens drainage to exit the green.

Project status

We didn't get much accomplished today. The rain kind of blew us out this afternoon. Hopefully we get a break the rest of the week so we can make up some time. Last week was productive as it was the first week we have had during the construction without any rainfall. It is almost impossible to shape the sub layer and install drainage if that clay gets wet.

Here is a picture of Ryan and Mike probing the gravel layer on #14 to make sure that it is the proper depth of 4" - which it was.

Pg1

Trying to get most of the mix in PG1 before the rain hits.

12

Finishing 12 with gravel.

Moving along on gravel.

Finishing up 13 and 12 with drainage and gravel. Trying to get it all in incase this rain hits us. When the gravel layer is in the rain isn't such a big deal since all the water has somewhere to go.

Gravel 14.

14 is all drained and ready for mix.

Keep South!!!

We have had some good progress this week. Hopefully this cell stays south.