Finally, a bright sun shiny day....oh wait, spoke too soon

This blog post was over a two day period. My how things change fast.

Sat afternoon.....

Ever since the first aerification in June it's been raining a lot. So much so that it's been difficult to do most remedial things like mowing some times. Here is a list of rain events since June. 

As you can see the rain has been pretty consistent. Due to the constant rain threat I've been hesitant to fertilize the course in fear of it being washed down the drains. The result has been a slowly  recovering turf. 

Thankfully this last week the rain subsided a bit and my team was able to get the course fertilized to promote growth. Due to the rain being so relentless this summer the grass is still a little thin, so I am going to modify the third aerification series a bit so it's not so aggressive. It is better to have more grass this time of year than not enough. 

This aerification session my team will just punch holes and sand most things, plug bare areas in the new green's perimeters, sod some areas where the insects have destroyed the grass, continue raising sprinkler heads and drains, and general maintenance stuff.  There will be no wall to wall heavy verti-cutting. 

So it was a beautiful weekend, Sunny, hot, and then Sunday evening rolls in.

Monday morning.....

Over night the course received constant rain for hours totalling 1.25" in all. Thankfully the rain stopped around 3 a.m. and the course drained a bit as today I am having the course injected with a chemical called Curfew to kill soil living pests. Wouldn't you know it though, it rained again right before the Curfew guys started. Thankfully it was just a quick blast and not substaintial. 

The Curfew material is custom injected by an outside company. It is sliced into the ground six inches deep as a high pressure gas that vaporizes and diffuses up through the soil killing all insects and pests except ants. For some reason ants are immune. The super high soil moisture content of the course actually helps in this case. Since there is no tarping to hold the gas in place, irrigation is needed afterwards to retard the volitity of the gas. Due to all the rain, my staff will not have to irrigate as much after the application. The reason the course is closed for 3 days is because of the re-entry restrictions. Any treated areas cannot be entered until 24 hours after application. So all day today and most of tomorrow my staff will be working in the landscaping and other areas of the course. Wednesday my staff will be out repairing any sod damage and putting the course back together for play on Thursday.