Post hurricane, back to the normal fall drought
The golf course sucked up a little less than 2 inches of rain from Hurricane Ian. The slow rain left the bunkers alone and the guys were back on the turf blowing debris around by Sunday. A quick dip into the 40's combined with the previous dry soil has the latitude on the way to dormancy. This year we have only seen about 37 inches of rain as compared to last years 52 inches which was very close to the annual average.
The area on 3 Manakin tees dried out early in the week and we finished prepping the new black tee Wednesday morning.
9000 square feet of Latitude36 sod covered up our void here. This will be just about the last of bermuda sod laid until spring time.
There is the new view from 3 black tee, about 15 yards further back and now playing 375 yards. This now takes Manakin over the 7,000 yard mark from all the way back.
The tall fescue up the right side of the hole is rooted in and received its first cut today. We would consider this area in play now save for some relief if you find sod seam.
Grant and John (and Sloan, Raul, Efrain and Manuel) continue tracking broken wires and digging holes to repair sprinklers on the Manakin. Here is a lateral pipe that was run during the Manakin renovation in 2003 that crossed the main line. The construction crew nicked 4 wires that have now taken 20 years to go bad. We have something special going on here with wires and solenoids deteriorating at the same time on Manakin. That mess of red wires is something you will not find on the Sabot. The 2 wire system is just that, a lone direct bury cable with 2 wires inside linking all the heads together. Easy to find a problem and fix it. We are hoping this Manakin situation becomes less of a nightmare but will continue assessing what works and what doesn't.
Our fall application of potassium started going out on all our short grass Thursday. The potash helps encourage a healthy root system not only so the bermuda can survive the winter temperatures but also be ready to pop out of dormancy successfully in the spring. Our pre-emerge application will go down towards the end of the month to defend against any Poa annua (like what is trying to pop up on the back of the Sabot) this winter. The color on Sabot's vamont has been and still is pretty strong right now!
The winter annuals are going in this week. We have completely abandoned pansies and violas this year because of the deer. The dusty millers have been our go-to thanks to their perennial nature and their deer resistance. We'll try some snapdragons as well and we did put a few kale and mustard plants out that the deer will probably munch on tonight despite soaking them down in that terrible smelling deer spray.
Enjoy the 80 degree day tomorrow and the nice fall weekend. Hopefully no frost sets in Saturday night!