Crazy Weather Creates Competition Problems In Turf

Since the rain last weekend, these crazy weeds have popped up in a few of Newports bermudagrass fairways. I am not 100% sure what it is yet, but with the cold mornings (we had a frost this morning), the bermudagrass has not grown much.  The weed has a competitive advantage right now.  Once the bermuda permanently wakes up and we scalp it and apply fertilizer, the weeds disappear.  It does not make sense to spray the bermudagrass with a herbicide right now for the broadleaf weeds.  It will stunt the bermuda further.  Looking ahead, it will be warmer this coming week, so we will mow the fairways and this problem will begin to disappear.

Greens Discoloration...What Is It?

With the wild swings in temperatures this spring, there have been a lot of unusual looking patches on the greens. primarily on the newer greens on Newport.  This spring, we have begun phase 2 of our poa control program on Newport.  You remember it began last fall and winter with eliminating it from the fairways.  Greens are trickier and cannot be 100% poa free, considering they are 14 years old.  This spring, we applied a seedhead control Embark, very early, because it was so warm.  Then, we had to move up our crabgrass preemergent to late March.  Combine this with extreme drought and introducing the regulator Trimmit, you have a perfect storm.  This is not damage or permanent.  My choices were do nothing and have seedheads and crabgrass.  The upper photo shows the poa stunted by all of the applications.  An unintended side effect of growth regulators is if we receive a frost, the creeping bentgrass can turn all different colors of yellows, purples and reds. 

The lower photo shows two distinct types of poa annua.  The pen is pointing to a patch of PERENNIAL poa annua.  This is generally fine bladed and does not produce a lot of seedheads.  This type is being University propagated for reproduction.  Some of the finest greens in the world are perennial poa, like Oakmont. The annual types are more bunchy and seedy, like the area by the chapstick.  This type is what I am trying to stun with the Trimmit.  Annual types are among the first to die from heat stress.  The perennial types are still disease susceptible, but are more manageable. We are using (picture this in your mind) a rate of 4-6 ounces of product per acre.  That is how precise these products are.  The early regulation helped smooth the greens when the poa was growing faster than the bentgrass.  To the right of the pen, you can see some of the red bentgrass.

So there is your explaination.  There is nothing wrong or unhealthy.  It is all part of a plan to produce better putting surfaces.  Why not do this on Seaside?  Those greens are much older and constructed differently.  The poa populations on Seaside are over 60%.  Newport still seems to be under 45%.  IF I tried to eliminate it all together, the bare spots would be much less attractive than what we have now.

More Irrigation

This is the graph I referred to in the last post.  Each color represents a specific area of the golf course.  This particular night, the irrigation came on at 12:30 AM and was finished by 5:30 AM.  There was 638,000 gallons pumped.  We are responsible for reporting all of our water use to the state.  While the irrigation ponds are on Club property, the water is the property of the state.  We recently had our withdrawl permit revamped to reflect all of our use more accurately. 

There are over 1000 irrigation heads on the OCGC courses.  They vary in size and water flow. They are spaced in single, double and triple rows.  Each station can be adjusted for water amounts.  The systems are not perfect.  In many cases as during this drought period you can see bentgrass tees on Seaside with puddles around them, but the tee tops are relatively dry.  In some cases, we have had to use a 1 inch hose on isolated areas/

Crazy Weather and Irrigation

What an unusual spring.  We have seen abnormally warm temperatures followed by heavy frost.  The one constant has been the droughtlike conditions.  One advantage early in the season is we can control the amount of water applied and preserve and grow our root systems for the summer.  What is that going to bring???  Let me educate you a little about our overhead irrigation.  Both systems are excellent and are computer controlled.   The computer sequences the irrigation we deem necessary to replace the water lost the previous day.  A typical watering cycle lasts from 9 PM to 5:30 AM.  We can pump over a million gallons of water in one night.  Not all of the irrigation heads pop up at once.  The intricate underground piping is divided into flow zones by the computer.  This helps save wear and tear on the pipe, pumps and various components.
One problem has been the constant wind.  The wind has an effect on the irrigation coverage.  The layout of parts of the system, while excellent, there are coverage problems.  This occurs in every system.  An example is on Seaside where some tees have become very wet around the tee, but the tee top is dry.  We are using soil surfactants to prevent premature drying, localized dry spots and preserve firmness.
In the spring when the humidity is low, my philosophy is to give the turf a deep watering and wait until the grass shows signs of wilt before applying more water.  We use moisture meters to dial the amounts of water applied.  An average water cycle is 20-30 minutes a head.  If a head applies 30 gallons per minute, that area receives 600 gallons in 20 minutes.  Deeper, infrequent irrigation hardens the turf for summer and promotes deeper root growth.  Its all about the roots!
As of April 13, we qre approaching 6 inches BELOW normal rainfall.  Where are the April showers???

Monitoring Quality

We constantly monitor our mowing equipment for quality of cut.  This is accomplished with the use of a prism pictured above.  Not only does it measure the mowing height, it shows up close the cut quality.  We can see above the nice clean cut on Newport greens.  This is as good as it gets.  The other interesting thing is how bench height settings are much different from actual mowing height.  Our mowers are bench set at aproximately .150", BUT the effective or actual mowing height is .110".  The difference generally comes from the weight of the equipment.