October

The golf season is winding down but there will be a few more good days to play and the course is looking pretty.  The greens are healing nicely from the aerification of last week.  The holes were small and the topdressing has worked in nicely leaving a good surface to play on.  We have raised the height of cut as we prepare for impending winter so greens aren't summertime fast but they still roll smooth.  Our mowing schedule on everything has slowed and we will only mow a couple more times on fairways and tees.  This is the time of year when we try to go easy on the grass to allow it to go into winter as healthy as possible.

One nuisance you have probably noticed this fall is the worm castings, but there is not much that can be done to prevent them.  This year they seem to be particularly bad perhaps because of the recent rains.   We hate them as much as you because they are unsightly and gum up our mowers but usually it is a short-term problem.  They are really active for about 2-4 weeks, but this cold snap should start sending them down in the soil as they too prepare for winter.


Below is a picture taken after the cross country meet showing the impact of hundreds of runners on the turf.  I show this not because I am upset about it but it is a good way of showing what golf carts, mowers and golfers do to turf.  This picture illustrates it better because the traffic is concentrated in one area and at one time, but the same compaction is occurring all week every week during the season.  I know golfers get tired of the mess associated with aerification but this is why we aerate so often-to counteract the subtle stress turf sustains due to traffic of all kinds.

Again this fall you have seen these rectangular spray strips.  We are once again trying some different rates and timing of Roundup application in hopes of controlling Poa annua.  You might wonder why we have done these trials in various areas and not just in a single fairway.  We want to test our applications under various conditions of soil types, traffic, and soil moisture to see if there is differences.  Also each area will have different percentages of bluegrass vs. rye so we can see how much injury occurs to each type of turf.  And finally Poa has many different varieties within its species so we want to see if one type is affected more than others.  Each area treated will have differing types and abundance of poa plants.