More Drainage!

Can you tell where water sits all the time on the 12th fairway?  This is the low area in the beginning of the fairway where water sits after every rain.  Not many options to drain it to, but you can see from constant wet feet the turf is thinning out, especially now that the heat is kicking in.  We installed a sump drain in the low area where Pedro is standing to alleviate this problem.  The area will slowly recover but we will be babying this and other areas along for the next few weeks.  After last nights rain there was no water sitting here this morning.

It Must Be Hot Out

This is the stepcut on #5 fairway.  The browning you see is Poa Trivialis, a cool season grass that cannot take any heat stress.  This was probably seeded here at Arcola years ago and has still managed to stick around.  I consider it a weed that is tough to get rid of.   Most summers it looks like this and we are hoping it is dead but it returns as healthy as ever once the weather changes.  Maybe this year may be different so we can finally get rid of this nuisance.  This is not only on this hole in abundance but also on 15 and 17 fairways and roughs.

Cool To See

The area to the left of the driveway may look unsightly but it is actually full of milkweed.  Not only does this plant have a great fragrance and a lot of flowers it is a perfect breeding sight for monarch butterflies.  The bottom picture is a cocoon we took from one of the plants that will morph into a butterfly in the coming weeks.   Where most of the time this weed would be killed now there is a push to preserve it and allow it to do its thing.

Playing Catch Up

Some of the crew came in Saturday afternoon to help mow areas that we had to skip on Friday due to the heavy rains.  Thanks to the boys for coming in to mow fairways, stepcuts and approaches.
Grass will start popping out of the ground now that temps are going to stay in the 80s for a while.  We have not had that growth flush yet this year, so it is coming.

IPM Strategies

You have seen this last year, but once again we are trying to see what our fairways can tolerate when under pressure from pests and fungus.  Last year remember the 12th fairway above had much more annual bluegrass weevil damage and we were able to get it to recover over a few weeks.  This year it seems the insects were much further into the fairway this generation than the past.  To treat 33 acres of tees and fairways would cost about $9500.  We spent $500 spot spraying a total of 2 acres of tees and fairways where we thought feeding was above damage thresholds.  Above you see most of the damage on 12 is at the beginning of the fairway and on the cleanup pass where hardly anyone plays from.  You can also see the top picture where the bentgrass is already filling in the thinned out areas.  The easy thing would have been to spray everything but we learned last year that we can get by and try and get the grass to outgrow the damage.  This year the damage was far less and I attribute it to having more bentgrass on this fairway from allowing the poa to be eaten last year.  We also had a minimal impact on the environment and our budget by allowing this to happen.

Getting Ready For the Invitational

While we will be busy mowing the golf course and doing all the little detail work to make it sparkle for the Invitational this coming week, head mechanic Joe Pannuto and Andrikson DeLa Rosa are going to be busy making sure all our equipment is mowing properly.  Each and every day they have to make sure that over 40 reels are sharp and cutting properly along with rotory mowers as well.  It is a full time job just making sure equipment everything is set accurately and then throw in the daily repairs that pop up and they are constantly busy.  These are the unsung heroes on our staff that most members never see.

Last Tree Being Removed

If you remember Memorial Day weekend was book ended with 2 storms and we lost a total of 5 trees, phone service, power to the pump house and to the street lights.  This tree here on 12 was the only one we could not clean since it was hung up in other trees.  Downes Tree came in last night to remove it for us.   Lets hope this is it for storms and rain for a long time.