The last few weeks have been a challenge. While the course overall is looking good, there are still issues with some greens. What happened to them and the corrective action taking place has been discussed in previous posts. So, what will the greens be like for The Rock tomorrow?
From tee to green the course is in top shape and nothing out of the normal should be expected. Although the greens will be playing close to normal, some of them are still not looking their best. We have had some good recovery but the majority of the seed did not come up as expected and the thin areas have not grown out as expected. This is exceptionally frustrating as we have done everything to encourage them to heal. I have had numerous consultants out over the last two weeks and they too are baffled at why the thin areas are not growing out. All of them, including myself, expected the greens to fully recover in a couple of weeks. In most areas the plants are not dead; they have healthy shoots and roots but the top growth is not happening.
I had some soil testing done and a water test taken at the onset of the conditions to investigate causes of the damage. The bicarbonates in the irrigation water have increased 25% since June and the salt concentration has nearly tripled. While we knew earlier in the year we were starting to have problems with the irrigation water, we had been working around it. In simple terms, the irrigation water is tying up nutrients in the soils making them unavailable to the plant and it increases salt, which was discussed in the spring. This added salt has us cautious right now so as not to create additional issues. A gypsum application before the rain last week did not yield the results we expected; it should have helped free up the nutrients. That rain event only provided ~0.3" of precipitation. Although it washed the gypsum in, it was not enough to flush it through to work fully. We have not had much rain since aeration (<2") and have had less than 1" since the issues appeared. These rainfall amounts are not enough to flush the greens (as they were spread out) so I believe the plants are struggling from lack of quality water and that we will see quantifiable recovery after a good period of rainfall.
2 Green on Labor Day
2 Green yesterday - while far from aesthetically perfect, the recovery is noticeable.
I initially had been treating the greens as a grow-in to push growth; since it was not recovering as expected a decision had to be made for The Rock. The extra water required to get the seed to pop and the extra fertilizer to push the growth are not desirable for green-speed. We were faced with a tough decision: continue the recovery process or prep the greens for The Rock. The decision was made to prep the greens since the turf is healthy overall, the brown areas are still alive (although not pushing growth), and the weather is perfect. This means that recovery may take a little longer overall (and gives us time for a prolonged precipitation event), the greens will all be up to speed and consistent for the upcoming tournaments. They will still have some thin and brown/tan areas but these are putting fine; the turf is short so the surfaces are even, just a different color.
In preparation, the greens were topdressed lightly last week to help smooth them further and it helped greatly. They are all back to regular mowing heights and the green-speed today was back just over 11'. It will increase to normal over the next few days.
A question surfaced regarding the plugged areas on greens. I discussed this briefly in a previous post. It is not necessary for the plugs to be consistent in size and shape or to completely fill in the area. The spaces between the plugs protect healthy plants/ new seedlings by keeping the mowers above them. The bentgrass can also creep into the voids. For this reason, plugging is quicker than sodding for smaller areas.
A question surfaced regarding the plugged areas on greens. I discussed this briefly in a previous post. It is not necessary for the plugs to be consistent in size and shape or to completely fill in the area. The spaces between the plugs protect healthy plants/ new seedlings by keeping the mowers above them. The bentgrass can also creep into the voids. For this reason, plugging is quicker than sodding for smaller areas.
Over the last few days the worst looking collars were sodded to help the aesthetics. The sod is from our nursery and is the same variety as the bentgrass on the greens, however, it is maintained at greens height. This means that it might look a little odd on the collars for a few days until it grows up to the collar height. Once it knits, it will be aerated, rolled and topdressed to make sure it is perfectly smooth.
Sodding 4 collar
17 before the collar was sodded
17 after the collar was sodded
So to sum up, the greens are consistent and running at their normal speed but they are not all aesthetically perfect. The recovery, while it has not gone as quickly as predicted, has still shown a lot of improvement and over the next few weeks the greens will recover as they need time to grow out.
As always, please e-mail me (alan@ledgerockgolf.com) with any questions you may have.
