Maybe next week the bermuda will wake up....
Even though Eligio is bundled up for a blizzard, this picture is from this week. We averaged a balmy 57 degrees this week as we finished up composting the driving range. The temperatures have been abysmal but at least we saw some rain come down this past Saturday to help things out. There are plenty of 80's in the forecast starting Sunday. Monday May 23rd and Tuesday May 24th we will have the Manakin closed in order to solid tine aerate and compost the fairways and rough. After that we will be finished with the compost and hopefully mowing some pretty thick bermuda!
The catmint around the clubhouse is enjoying the cooler wet weather. All 3,500 of our annuals showed up this week and have been going in the ground one by one.
The bentgrass on the greens has also perked up some so we have been running our new verticutter over them every Monday. The vertical blades slice off any lateral growth and promote a healthier surface. The new greens on the Sabot are so incredibly dense already that the verticutter just helps thin that turf out so we can try and better match the green speeds on the back nine. It will be a season long process figuring out how the new Pure Eclipse reacts to different weather patterns and cultural practices as it all relates to putting quality.
About a year in the making, our new custom built fairway sprayers (2) are finally on site! Our prior sprayers were 300 gallon units that occupied a large utility vehicle (progator) for its entire life. These new units have a 500 gallon capacity and their boom is 30ft wide compared to 22ft. The sprayers can be detached so that the tractor can be used for other chores which is a huge plus for our operation. In addition these new sprayers are fully controlled by GPS satellites. This means that each individual nozzle is controlled down to the inch and comes on and off automatically according to a previously drawn boundary. The new trailer sprayers will make spraying fairways and rough a breeze with less fill ups, faster application times and pinpoint accuracy!
We put the sprayers right in to action on Thursday, spraying a light rate of fertilizer on the Manakin fairways to see if they can wake up for next week. Spring and/or summer has to show up sometime!