Flushing greens

Thought this was a cool picture. It didn't come out as good as it looked in person.

Had to come in to check on the flushing process. Had a problem with the irrigation clock on #2 so had to flush manually. Thank goodness for mobile technology - I checked on the process from my phone and saw there was a problem - came in to do 2 manually and check on process with other greens.

Come on September!!!

Weather and flushing

It looks like we may have a break coming our way as far as the temps are concerned. The chance of rain nearly everyday next week isn't what you want to see this time of year but at least the forecasted temps are not that high.

As far as today goes......The rain missed us this evening but that's just as well. I'm going to flush greens tonight with the irrigation system. The greens have been slow to recover, partially due to to weather and partially due to the amount of sodium built up in the top inch of the soil profile. The sodium prevents the plant from recovering from stress, even with proper nutrition present and favorable weather.

Geese

Duff - looking for the geese on #4....... but nothing. They were irritated to the point of leaving - finally. Let's see if we can keep it that way.

Test results

I got back all the test results I was looking for the greens. The results confirmed what I thought might have been the problem - a little bit of disease and a lot of bad weather. We had some Pythium Root Rot, some Bacterial Wilt, and some Anthracnose but most of these could be found in just about any bentgrass green sample in the Mid-Atlantic this time of year. Our biggest reason for the recent decline of the greens is the weather. The heavy rain followed by extreme heat and humidity caused our bentgrass and poa to shut down. These conditions don't allow the plant to transpire and cool itself. It could be compared to heat stroke in humans when your body stops sweating, not allowing your body to cool itself.

When the plant is weakened by this occurrence it provides a window of opportunity for pests like diseases to flourish, even with all the preventive measures we take with our spray program. The best way to get the greens to recover is limit mowing and rolling, continue to provide nutrition that is readily available to the plant, stay on a curative spray program, and wait for some cooler weather - all of which we are doing.

Come on September!!!!!!

Greens

Greens look much better this morning after a 70 degree night. We've seen some recovery in the last day and if these temps break soon like forecasted we should be in good shape.

This July has had some rain, and humidity that we rarely see in this area. Most of the clubs in Tidewater are struggling with greens right especially any courses with pencross/poa greens. Comparatively speaking I think we are in good....better.....shape than some of the other guys in the area. This is directly related to budget and having the resources available to put down everything we need, to help survive a difficult weather pattern like this.

Collars

Here is a picture of us sodding out collars. We are changing out some of the collars that we have problems with every year to Bermuda.

Rain

Just checked radar.......more rain. That's the last thing we need with high 90's forecasted for the next 2 days.

Sent from my iPhone