My apologies for not keeping up with the blog page updates. Our
maintenance staff is 14 people short of being full, this has kept us very busy
trying to keep up with all maintenance and projects.I am happy that we will be bringing on some high school and college age people to help us get through the summer. We are still short staffed and will be heavily short staff once fall comes when these people go back to school. We will make the best of it and will continue to provide you with a great conditioned golf course.
Tulip flowers have been up and are now gone. We have dead-headed them all. We are letting the green leaves of the tulip plants produce chlorophyll and store this energy in the bulbs of the plant. Once the leaves start to die back, we will dig the plants up, storing the bulbs all summer and then re-plant them in the fall. Annual flowers are set to arrive the end of May.
The project at the end of the cart boulevard has created quite a bit of questions. Matt Ruehling has ordered a 16’ high, 4 faced clocks to be installed in the middle of the island. Nate Tegtmeier suggested that we really dress this area up and make the area around the clock into a bentgrass putting green area. While we do foresee not many people putting on it, it should become a very nice formal area to look at from the new sports bar. Clock is set to arrive in June.This is an example of what has been ordered.
Back in late November of last year we solid tine aerified
our putting greens very deep with 11” tines. We were trying to break up a layer
of hard pan and to create channels for roots to go deeper and give us areas for
us to leech salts from our profile. I am very happy to say that it is working, we
are growing some nice roots down these channels. Our hope is to provide a healthier
turf plant that will sustain longer periods of dry conditions, drawing from a deeper
root system. This is an ongoing project for several years and not a one and done. We have not had root depths like these for several years and are very pleased with the results.
I happy to say that the project on the north side of the clubhouse is complete. Clubhouse staff will finish the preparations for “Aces” food truck, and it will be great to see it in action at its new location. I have had a sample of the food that they can provide, and it was very good.
We have heard many comments about the condition of the golf course. Golfers are enjoying the firmer conditions. We are aware of these conditions and much of the faster turf is the fact that it has been a cold spring with very little growth from the turfgrass plants. We are also not watering very much because of the weather, there is no need. We will do our best to continue these conditions. At some point, the weather is going to get warmer, and it will rain, softening the conditions. Also the bentgrass will start to grow and speeds might slow down a touch. We have moisture meters to monitor the soil moisture content and we try very hard to keep the greens and fairways dry, just above wilting point. Because of the very high salts and bicarbonates in our water, our turf does dehydrate much quicker, causing us to water more than we would like to keep it alive. Hopefully, some of the things that we have done and will continue to do will help mediate these salts.
I read an interesting statement in a turfgrass text book " The salinity level of soil is an important component of irrigation and nutrient management. High salt concentrations in the soil has a negative effect as plant roots cannot bring in sufficient soil moisture to stay alive."
This is exactly what we battle when we try to dry down the turf, we get excessive wilt because the roots cannot bring water in to stay alive. You have to apply more to get any water into the plant. We are doing measures to mitigate this. We will let you know how they are working.
We hope to see all of you out on the golf courses this spring and we hope you enjoy the changes taking place.