Almost there

Although we are not quite out of the woods yet with the golf course following the ordeal with the preventive herbicide, today I was as giddy as a kid with a pocket full of money standing at the doors of the mall. Today I saw something on the course I haven't seen in a while...grass clippings. Yep that's right, little piles of grass all over the place left after the mowers cut the grass today. They say it's the little little things in life that get you by, and I was so excited to see these normally pain in the rear things this morning I had to stop and do a double take.

Needless to say this is a great sign that the course is improving and headed back towards our expectation level. I have some test plots of granular fertilizer out on the course to spot check the root development of the grass and as soon as I see the dramatic effect on turf growth from the granular fertilizer I will push the turf growth even harder. Since the preventive herbicide damaged the roots of the grass, there's no sense in applying a course wide application of granular fertilizer until I'm certain the grass roots have recovered sufficiently enough to be able to capture and utilize the food. It's close to $10,000 to fertilize the golf course so I want to be absolutely certain I am not wasting any material...or money.

Normally I'd end the post by saying something like "enjoy the extra roll" but right now I'm really hoping you hardly get any roll because that means there's lots of turf growth happening. For now, that's a good thing!

On the mend

Hopefully everyone has read the post on what happened to the course after the preventive herbicide was applied.  Well, I'm happy to show you that the course is getting better.  Here is some pictures I have taken to document the progress.

Here's 14 fairway

 

 

 

This is 14 red tee over the last 3 weeks

 

 

 

Some areas were so badly damaged that the chemical manufacturer agreed to pay for complete turf replacement.  This set of pictures is of the left rough on #9 by the fairway bunker.

 

The damage

 

The area stripped of the damaged turf

 

 

The area after new turf sod was installed

 

 



There are several areas around the course that already received, or is on the schedule to receive new replacement turf.  It is taking a little bit to get around to all the severely damaged areas as we are having to strip and lay 6400 square feet of sod a week.  That's a lot of grass.  The really great news as I said before is that the manufacturer of the chemical I used has agreed to cover the cost of the sod.  This week's sod truck will be #3 and we have another to do next week.  Just a reminder that all newly grassed areas are played as ground under repair.

 

You might of also noticed that all of the stripping spoils have been used to do some needed lake bank restoration work. I was planning on doing the lake bank work next summer, but with all of the grass and dirt we are moving around now it just made sense to initiate the project immediately.

 

 

Lake bank falling in due to wind erosion

 

 

A lake bank with the same erosion problem after the sod spoils have been installed.  The spoils will be raked out and tamped to compact.  The intent is to allow the sod spoils to take root and stabilize the bank during the dry season, before any rain or storm erosion takes place. 

 

 



CCN gets a checkup from the USGA

As part of our normal practices on a bi-annual basis the USGA is invited out to ask question and inspect the course's agronomics.  Also as part of our normal practices is to share with everyone the results of the inspection.  Please spend a few minutes and read the report on the health and well being of the course.

Clink here for CCN's November 2012 USGA report card

An ounce of prevention sometimes doens't pay off

By now you may have noticed that the course doesn’t have the normal luster it usually has this time of year.  Since we completed our last major summer maintenance week in late September and began priming the course for the season, we’ve faced two separate and unrelated chemically-induced turfgrass damage incidents, both caused by manufacture error.  The odds of one incident occurring are low since I only use well established materials and suppliers; the odds of two incidents occurring within a 45-day period are immeasurable.   The good news is none of the damage is permanent and numerous steps are already underway, as discussed below, and the golf course will return to our high standards in a relatively short period of time.  

The areas that currently look dry or have become thin is a separate issue from the tip burn that happened about 45 days ago and reported on my blog posting of October 30th.  The tip burn was a short term issue and has gone away. The problem causing the thin spots on the course now is from a chemical I had applied to the soil that kills weeds as they emerge from a seed.  This type of chemical is known as a preventative herbicide.    

The preventative herbicide compound creates a barrier within the soil profile, sort of like a chemical tarp.  When a weed seed germinates and starts to develop its first root, the preventative herbicide kills the root and the plant before it is ever seen.  That same chemical compound that kills the new weed plant root is also having a negative effect on the celebration Bermuda grass.    To confirm my theory, I had the manufacturer out to the course on November 9^th to look at the damage and they have accepted blame for the injury.  It was explained to me that when the compound is applied to high sand content soil, sometimes the compound moves through the upper soil profile where it is intended to the lower root zone where the grass roots are located.  The result of the material in the lower root zone is that it prunes the roots it comes into contact with causing decline.  This is what happened to us and other courses in South Florida. In the picture below of an area damaged by the preventative compound you can see the very small amount of organics on the top of the soil probe and the large amount of clean sand below it.  The chemical moved right through the small amount of soil organics (the dark material at the top) and into the sand profile below.

 

If you look at where the injury on the course occurred the explanation makes sense.  Most of the injury is on tee tops, green surrounds, approaches, ridge lines between drains, and mounded areas.  All of these areas either receive large amounts of sanding or are constructed out of high sand content materials.  Additionally, some of the affected areas have the problems enhanced due to other stresses added to the weakened turf.  The extra stresses like cart traffic, low mowing heights, shade, and low water holding capacity when coupled with the effects of the root damage caused by the preventative herbicide are simply too much for some of the areas to take.  The result of which is causing the turf to thin out and become even more sparse. Areas like the one in the picture below will be replaced with new sod paid for by the chemical manufacturer.

Another telltale sign of the problem being chemical damage is when you can see drain line patterns show up as if they were excessively dry, even though the area is wet as seen in the picture below.  Since the drain trenches carry water away from the wet areas, it would make sense that the compound would accumulate there as well.  The areas in the right side of the picture below have a very fine textured heavy clay type soil structure as compared to the very course sandy soil structure on the left.  Remember, the high sand content areas that drain very well is where the problems are.  The inconsistency of the turf quality, as it relates to the application of the preventative herbicide, is due to the widely varying soil structure all over the golf course and how the preventative herbicide reacts to the specific soil structure.

 

Preventative herbicide use is very common on golf courses.  I have been using them at CCN  for 4.5 years with no ill effects.  So this is not a new process, just a new compound.  The reason for the new compound is analogous to the way people use medicines.  If we took penicillin every day to ward off infection, eventually that medicine will become less and less effective for us.  The same principle holds true for use of herbicides.  The continued use of the same chemical compound year after year will result in the production of herbicide resistant weeds.  So in following best management practices, I rotated product chemistries this year.  It just turns out that CCN is allergic, so to speak, to the chemical I used.

We only have one more week of the six- week compound residual.  The good news is that the golf course is fully fertilized and ready for the residual of the preventative herbicide to wear off so we can push turf growth.  Once the compound breaks down in the soil and the roots of the plant start to recover, there will be plenty of food for the plant to feed on.  The manufacturer of the compound is also sending me some material at no cost to the Club that will aide in pushing turf growth and recovery.  As a comparison, the only celebration on the course that didn’t get any of the preventative herbicide is around the clubhouse putting green and the grass is beautiful.  Also, the greens received none of the herbicide and they are great. 

 

I can tell you definitively that the grass on the course is on the mend. The pictures below are of 14 red tee one week apart. As you can see, there is a definite improvement.

  

Some areas however, we will not wait on to recover.  Over the next several days, you will see my staff out doing sod projects where I feel the grass is just too far gone to wait for it to recover.  These areas will be replaced and marked as ground under repair.

As with everything I do on the course, my goal is to always have an informed membership on the good…and the bad.  The damage on the golf course is not a permanent position and it is already improving and will continue to do so.  Thanks for your patience and enjoy the extra roll while it lasts.

A message from the local Extension Agent about problems with Inpatients

Colder Weather Will Trigger Disease Development, Downy Mildews and Turf Disease...

If you are inclined to try impatiens again for your flower beds...DON'T! Resist that temptation!

Remember last January when there was a rampant and sudden loss of most impatiens plantings in south Florida? Still, impatiens are unashamedly being sold at certain locations. But recall the epidemic we had last year! The spores of this water mold are probably in 4 out of 5 landscape soils now . Cornell University's plant pathologist, Margery Daughtrey, reports that, " ...32 states were affected this year (2012); that means all the eastern ones (except for WV, which must not have been looking) and the 3 coastal states on the west coast. "

Symptoms include, slight marginal, cupping of leaves and eventual defoliation. A powdery growth occurs on the underside of the leaves. The pathogen is not a true fungus, rather it is similar to the water molds, so typical fungicides aren't effective. Some fungicides may help minimize infection, but after the plant is infected it is too late. It is not recommended to plant impatiens until this is all sorted out. See fact sheets (search for "annuals") at our local web site (http://collier.ifas.ufl.edu) for alternative short plants for color(New Guinea impatiens, geraniums, begonias, lantanas, bromeliads, etc).

However, alternative plant species, that I am aware of, don’t offer the range of salmon, purple and lavender flower hues of impatiens. Impatiens require considerable water to keep them vigorous, so maybe their loss will save some aquifer depletion. Fortunately, the downy mildew pathogen, Plasmopara obducens, doesn't bother other plant species.


Please see a nation-wide compilation of information at this American Floral Endowment web site: http://tinyurl.com/8o3yr59 and also our local Youtubevideo on this: http://tinyurl.com/9pvlp8m .


Awabuki viburnum downy mildew disease and large (brown) patch disease of turfgrasses will be activated with the recent cooler weather. Diseases are difficult to manage once they get a toe-hold. So if you have an area with a history of the disease, contact your landscape maintenance company or you should consider applying the fungicides as a preventive (for turf & viburnum diseases) once the weather is favorable for disease development, which means now with the cooler night temperatures we had this (week of October 26) ! We have separate fact sheets at our web site on managing these cool season diseases (http://collier.ifas.ufl.edu) as well as our Youtube videos (http://tinyurl.com/d4e3er2) .

Doug Caldwell, Ph.D., “helping you beautify your landscape and protect the environment”, is the commercial landscape horticulture extension educator and landscape entomologist with the University of Florida Collier County Extension Service. The Cooperative Extension Service is an off-campus branch of the University of Florida, Institute of the Food and Agricultural Sciences and a department of the Public Services Division of Collier County government. E-mail, dougbug@ufl.edu .

"Helping you beautify your landscape and protect the environment!"

Lake bank work

Some of you might of noticed on hole 5 along the lake bank some fill material added in a couple spots. These areas were filled with cart path edging scraps that I saved because the lake bank was eroding severely. During the reconstruction of the course the excavators reached out into the lakes as far as they could and dug out material to shape the course with. This process left a trench around the perimeter of the lakes, and in some spots of that under water trench the walls are severe. Over time soil is naturally going to start sliding down hill causing the lake banks to cave in. This is a pretty common issue with newer golf courses since you really can't tell what is happening underwater when digging. The cure to this problem is to either rebuild the lake banks or add material to fill in the trench so it stops sliding. During the last cart path edging, instead if paying to dispose of the spoils I saved them knowing that we needed to do some lake bank work come spring. This particular area on 5 was severely eroded so I filled it now. One big benefit of using the cart path spoils is that it already has some grass sprigs and sod in it to speed up the stabilization process.

In the pictures below you can see the area on 5, as well as an area along the cart path in front of 3 blue tee that needs some work. The lake banks will be primarily an early spring time project, but certain areas in dire need of some restoration will be done sooner.

Super Storm's damage to golf

Click here to see a slide show of the Super Storm Sandy's effect on golf in the northeast

Every week I get an email from the USGA about what's happening in golf around the country.  Sometimes it is about new research, sometimes it is about something very unique to a golf course.  In this week's email blast was a link to a slide show on some of the damage to golf courses in the northeast that got blasted by Sandy.  Click the link up top to take a quick peek into the destruction.