Manakin greens aeration complete, working on some projects
These cool nights are a welcomed change! Now all we need is some rain and for the oak trees to maybe hold their acorns until after the bermuda goes dormant!
Our final core aeration for the year on greens is now complete. We again just used 1/4" coring tines on the Manakin greens but at 1.5" spacing which is as close as you can get. Even with the smaller tines we were still able to brush in 40 tons of sand into these greens. The smaller tine offers less disruption and the aerator itself pulls less on the upper layer, allowing the green to recover faster.
The small cores are easily blown off to the side and picked up.
All the greens were topdresssed with kiln dried sand which brushes nicely into the holes. We have made major headway over the past few years with our aerations. The greens play firmer, they respond to stress correctly and their leaf texture has improved greatly. Continuing to manage the top 2 inches diligently will keep these greens working nicely for years to come.
Our first fungicide application for spring dead spot went out on all the short grass playing surfaces this week. Spring dead spot is a disease that infects the bermuda in the fall and if it does so successfully, the bermuda will not come out of dormancy. Applying a fungicide now and then again in 3-4 weeks will help prevent any damage from disease in the spring. SDS is different than winterkill, although it can exacerbate the impact, but winterkill would just be a result from cold and or dry weather.
The spring dead spot fungicide has to be watered into the root zone for the bermuda. The new irrigation system on the Sabot is such a joy to operate. With its properly sized piping it waters much faster than the Manakin, and light years ahead of the back nine.
Our big project for the week (and next week) is out on 3 Manakin. Since the wood line has been moved back here on the right of 3 for the new bermudagrass, we were left with a big ugly wood chip bed. These wood chips have now been removed between the tree line and the bermuda. Next week we will be sodding this entire side of the hole with turf type tall fescue that will be mowed around 2.5"
Part of the reason the bermuda ends where it does is because the irrigation heads along the edge of the fairway only throw that far. We cut a 500 foot long trench on the edge of the old bed and installed 19 smaller heads that will throw 30 feet towards the trees to keep the new tall fescue sod healthy.
A nice edge was cut, the new pipe and heads were all backfilled, and we continue to clean out the old wood chips.
We also wanted to get rid of the wood chip bed to the right of the tees on 3. In general wood chip beds take a lot of work to keep weeds out of and repair after heavy rains. The more turf cover we can gain instead of mulch or pine straw beds the better. The bermuda will now stretch up to the property line and connect nicely back to 2 fairway. We are also going to go ahead and add some soil here and move the black tee back and to the right a bit. This will create more of a dogleg to the hole and bring the fairway bunker back in to play some more.
The fescue sod will go down on #3 next week and then the bermuda by the tee will follow the week after. Our window for warm season sod projects is closing quickly as we prepare for the greens resurfacing and irrigation project on the back of Sabot November 1st. Enjoy the start of fall!