Preparing for Virginia's Summer Grind
This week has really been our advance week for the arrival of the true Virginia summer we knew would be here before long.
Monday marked a very exciting day for the maintenance team—it was the last Monday outing for a couple of weeks! We have a regular maintenance Monday this coming week, followed by Sabot verticutting and topdressing, an outing on July 13, and then a break from outings until mid-August.
Before Monday's outing, we were able to complete a lot of prep work for the heart of the summer season. The greens were lightly topdressed, followed by a foundational nutrition package of calcium (Ca) and potassium (K). These nutrients help strengthen the plant's cell walls and aid in stress recovery—two things that are essential for maintaining quality playing conditions throughout the heat of the summer.
The greens were a little softer and slower than they've been in some time, but this is an acceptable byproduct of the much-needed rainfall we received early this week. Today and tomorrow, the greens will get a mow and roll to bring speeds back up for the weekend. After that, we'll dig in and back off the rolling for a bit as the extreme heat arrives.
One area we're focusing on and making some program adjustments to is the collars. While they're not bad, they're certainly not up to our standards. These are by far the most difficult areas on the courses to maintain. We're still waiting for Mother Nature to help transition some of the Poa from the collars, as most herbicides that are effective on Poa are too risky to apply in close proximity to bentgrass greens. These areas also receive the most traffic on the golf course—greens mowers, collar mowers, rollers, sprayers, foot traffic, and more. To give these areas a boost and help choke out weed pressure, we've been making multiple nutrient applications combined with wetting agents and additional pre-emergent herbicides.
Now that we've seen some rainfall, we've also started to see weed pressure increase, especially on Sabot in he Vamont bermudagrass. This variety isn't nearly as dense as the Latitude bermudagrass on Manakin. Latitude naturally chokes out many unwanted invaders, while the thinner canopy of Vamont is more susceptible to weed encroachment. For that reason, we've been making spot treatments all week and seem to be staying ahead of everything.
It's not a week at Herm without some detail work! Crews have been clearing brush and cleaning up creek edges on holes #12 and #17 at Sabot, raising and leveling drains on #9 at Manakin, and even installing a paver path to help the pool staff push those heavy laundry baskets up the hill.
Two reminders...
1.) Please make sure to pick up your feet on the greens this time of year. The greens get a little softer and "puffier" with the heat and humidity, making them more susceptible to traffic damage. Pick 'em up—no twisting!
2.) Many of you enjoy walking the course in the mornings and evenings. Please keep an eye out for anything that doesn't look right, especially in the evenings when our staff isn't around. We lost every single tee marker on #2 Sabot this past weekend, with the exception of one black tee marker. I'm guessing someone threw them into the pond, and these things are not cheap. If you see anything suspicious, please let someone at the club know.
