Collar update....post Roundup application

Now that we are 7 day post application of the non-selective herbicide (meaning it kills everything) to the collars you can really see how much of the putting surface that has been lost. What is also very evident is how resilient the grass is in its ability to survive such an application. The Celebration grass's durability and tenacity is why it was chosen during the renovation in 2009. We knew back then that when we had to reclaim the putting surfaces, the very reasons why we wanted the grass in the fairways was going to make it a bear around the greens. 

All of the green haze within the kill zone is still actively growing Celebration grass, and this is exactly why we needed to get started killing the grass early. It is going to take multiple applications of herbicide to kill the plant significantly enough to make a putting surface reclamation project successful. If I do not kill the Celebration it will pop right back up on the putting surface from below where I cut it out and the whole endevour will be wasted. 

I'm guessing on the first application we got approximately 75% kill. So on May 16th, the first day the course is closed on Mondays, I will have the collars sprayed again. Then sprayed again on the 30th. Although we will never kill the grass 100% because we are not fumigating the perimeters, we will be able to achieve a kill rate in the upper 90% range. That will make anything that pops back up very manageable to remove. 

Preparing for the future

Today the golf maintenance team started the process of the putting surface reclamation project by spraying the encroaching celebration grass with Roundup herbicide. The Roundup herbicide is a non-selective chemical that is taken in through the plant leaf and kills the plant within 7-10 days. The plant will begin showing faint signs of dying sometime this weekend.  There  will be no signs of anything done for the Lady's event tomorrow. The course will play and look the same as it did Tuesday.

To make sure the Roundup doesn't drift off target the Maint team made some drift shields out of some thin paneling board and used some smaller lumber pieces as handles. 

This method provides 100% containment and perfect edges. 

Once the Roundup is dry it is absorbed quickly into the plant. Tonight I am having the greens heavily watered and the remaining blue ring around the greens, which is essentially just a colorant like food dye, will wash into the soil and you'll never know we were there. 

Again, the grass won't show signs of being sprayed until this weekend. 

Surrogate parents

Congrats to everyone, you're all surrogate parents to a new generation of wildlife on the course. I had all of the nesting boxes surveyed last week and we have some new members in the Club. 

Screech Owl using one of the boxes

Great Crested Fly Catcher eggs

Tell tale Blue Bird eggs

Not only are the golfers happy with the course, our wildlife around the property are prosperous as well. 

Walking the line

During the next few days my staff will be marking the original perimeters of the greens with white lines. This is where the putting surface was when we opened after the golf course renovation project in 2009. The Celebration's tenacious growth habit is spectacular for wear resistance and divot recovery, but not so good on putting surface encroachment. As you'll see when you play, some areas have encroached significantly. This summer the plan is to recapture the lost putting surface.

On April 27th I have coordinated with the golf shop to close the first tee at 1 o'clock so that my staff can begin the phased process of the project. They're will remain closed for the rest of the day so that someone doesn't step onto the recently applied herbicide and then track it somewhere unintended.

Here are the steps that will happen.

4/27 : spray a non-selective herbicide on the area from the outer edge of the putting surface to the inner edge of the encroaching Celebration grass

5/16 : spray a non-selective herbicide on the area from the outer edge of the putting surface to the inner edge of the encroaching Celebration grass. The area should be 90% dead but we want to kill as much as possible to make sure it doesn't come back.

5/30 : spray a non-selective herbicide on the area from the outer edge of the putting surface to the inner edge of the encroaching Celebration grass. The area should be 99% dead but we want to really kill as much as possible to make sure it doesn't come back.

6/6 : sod cut off the dead ring of grass around the front 9 greens. Afterward dead grass removal,aerify the putting surfaces and then push the billions of tiny fresh grass plugs into the empty troughs around the greens to replant the recaptured areas. Tamp down to start the grow-in process.

The tricky part of the entire process is to make sure we do not run out of aerification plugs. To prevent this from happening we will only strip the front 9 green's perimeters to start, and then will strip more as needed after I see what sort of progress is made and how far the plugs go. There is a chance we will need to extend the project into July if we run out of aerification plugs to refill the perimeter troughs

Click here for the USGA's publication on the process for more details

It's all about the weather

Most people in Naples this time of the year are here because of the typically great weather.  It is no secret, right? Blue skies, sunshine and 80 degrees is the place you wanna be!!  It Almost seems like a myth this year.

I did some research on the University of Florida's weather station to see just how different our local weather has been and it is pretty surprising even to me.  Back in the fall I did a post called "Winter golfing season is almost here" click here for "Winter golfing seaon is almost here" and explained in detail the science behind the timing of the summer maintenance practices.  After riding the course with Trevor this morning and doing our usual weekly planning session I wanted to see just how far away from summer growing conditions we have gotten.  My "barometer number" of 140 for great winter plant health is based off of historical solar radiation output from the sun and years of experience putting the course through the greatest stress at the worst time of year.  Here is what we are getting now as compared to a few years gone by....quite different.

If you are wondering why the golf course is seeming to be "dull" for this time of year you only have to look at the highlighted numbers.  During the time frame of January 2013-2015 we averaged 140.35 units of solar radiation as compared to dismal 114.49 the course received in 2016.  The sun's energy is just not getting to the grass to fuel the photosynthetic process.  Days like today with 100% cloud coverage really cut down on the required solar radiation for the plant to be able to endure the punishment of winter time golf.

Now have a look at the rainfall totals.  We were blessed with an amazing 10 inches of rain in January.....that's crazy!!!!! All of that rain and cold weather cost the Club over 800 rounds of golf.

Also highlighted with the total amount is the amount that falls in less than 15 minutes.  The table shows that we do typically get a shower, maybe even a good rain...but 10 inches of rain is such an anomaly.  Also, in one of those winter storms we received almost .6" of rain in 15 minutes.  That is like a mid-summer rain event.  I remember back in 1998 during the last "Great El Nino", I was an Assistant Supt at Collier's Reserve back then, and the area received almost 7 inches of rain in February when historically we received almost nothing.  It caused a lot of problems with turf thinning out and an overall lack of turf vigor, just like what we are experiencing now.  Even with my large bag of tricks to make the course look good, we are primarily dependent on Mother Nature to give us the basics like sunshine to make the course look good. 

The sun is the essence of all the good that we are wanting right now, and quite frankly have come to expect.  Until Mr. Golden Sun decides to peek out from around the clouds the course is going to be at less than peak performance.  In anticipation of the sun eventually coming out, I had the entire course fertilized last week.  I wanted to make sure that the only limiting factor to make the course come back to life is the one thing we can't give it, sunshine.

Irrigation issues

I'm sure everyon has seen the Clubhouse green and number 1. The irrigation controller that controls the irrigation for these greens went down. Trevor checked the green on Friday and by Saturday the green had turned for the worse. The controller has been repaired and the putting surface is starting to green up, but the weather is fighting us at every turn as well. The windy conditions and low humidity are making water control difficult. Hopefully, by week's end the surface will be green again. 

Temperature inversion.

Today I got a report of some dead fish in the lake on 7/9....that's never good. I checked the chemical logs and nothing has been sprayed in months that would cause an issue. Then I remember that on Wednesday we repaired a main connection drainage pipe that dumps into the lake. This might not seems significant but trust me it was.

The end of the pipe in the picture was actually floating out of the water due to the hollow ribbing that gives the pipe structural strength. To fix it Kenny just added some weights to the end of the pipe and it sank back into the water. THEN, the water that was being held back started roaring out of the end of the pipe. All of this water was coming from the lake on 5. The rapid introduction of all the new water into a system that had stabilized after the rains seems to have caused a temperature inversion in water column which is believed be the cause of the dead fish. It is not due to a chemical or fertilizer application.