Fall Maintenance September 2nd

The annual fall maintenance is upon us and there are going to be some adjustments from years past because of the unusual weather we have experienced this year.

Aerification practices will be the same. On the greens cores .50 inch in diameter and 2 inch spacing will be pulled and then filled with sand, then we do it again with .25 inch diameter cores on that same 2 inch spacing. That is a lot of holes but it results in surfaces that drain better and are firmer and smoother playing. The hard work that it takes to do this job is worth the results. The easiest thing to do is to not do aerification but you will pay the price later.

Greens aerification

.25 inch aerification holes

Now for the different aspect of this year. Seed is usually put down prior to the sand topdress on fairways and roughs. During fall maintenance this year seed will be added to landing areas and high traffic areas but not to all areas as in the past. This year when we reduced the irrigation on the course many areas of turf were lost. Not all these areas will be regrown. Of the areas that will be regrown, some will be established to different grass species suitable to drought conditions. In order to continue to conserve resources, irrigation water will not be used to grow this seed and instead, we will wait for our rainy season and hope that it shows up this year.

Irrigation reduction area where seeding will be delayed

So just a little different strategy to add seed the week of fall maintenance only where we need it in landing zones and high traffic areas and then wait on the other areas until the rainy season.

Kevin