SPF 50 For Putting Greens

Last week, we began applying PAR with our weekly foliar spray applications.  PAR is a turquoise pigment that has been proven over the last few years to protect putting greens from the sun...kind of SPF 50 for greens.  This pigment has been used in the chemicals Signature and Tartan for awhile.  The pigment is marketed as Stressguard.  Now that it is sold in gallon jugs, we 9-10 oz per acre each week.  Another tool to keep the turf healthy during summer stress times.

What Are the Blue Rings Around the Bunkers?

This past week, we finished a second edging of all the bunkers. In order to take full advantage of the guys hard work, we sprayed the inside edges with a mixture of RoundUp and Dimension.  The purpose is to kill and prevent bermuda and zoysia runners and weeds from contaminating the edges.  The blue color is a small amount of indicator dye we added to make sure we have proper coverage.  The dye disappeared the next day.  The dye was also needed to monitor spray drift.

How Turf Can Be Damaged During Extreme Heat

PICTURE 1-A drink spilled on turf during a hot day

PICTURE 2-Spraying ones legs with Deet Insect Repellent

PICTURE 3-One person moved the ropes apart during an event then golf carts began to wear out the new  sod on #5 Newport.  I moved the ropes back before taking this picture.

New Sod Areas and Cart Traffic

We began to open some of the newly sodded rough areas for play last week.  Immediately after we took the ropes down on the refurbished area on 13 Newport, a golf cart drove through the new sod.  I do not understand why folks do not respect/appreciate the work put in to improve the golf courses.  Here is a photo of cart tracks driven through the ropes on #5.  

Bermudagrass Fairway Update

We have sand topdressed most of the weaker areas of the Newport fairways.  This will allow the existing bermudagrass to fill in, much like it did last year.  That explains all of the white spots you are seeing.  It just speeds up the process of filling in the weaker areas.

In picture 2, we slit seeded some Sunsport Bermudagrass seed into the remaining portions of Newport fairways that are predominantly cool season grass.  These areas are shrinking daily.  While seeded bermudagrass is not 100% foolproof, if even a little bit of seed germinates, these areas will fill in quicker with bermudagrass, creating a better playing surface.

Summer Aerification

We began our first round of summer aerification on Seaside.  We then added nutrients per our latest soil test, so the greens are as best prepared for summer as possible.  We use 1/4" pencil shaped tines.  They punch a small hole on 3 inch spacing.  We then roll the green and you really never see the holes.  The second picture explains the benefits of pencil tining.  Hope this answers any of your questions.

What Are Those Round Spots?

Dollarspot is a very old turf fungus.  It has been a problem for turf managers forever.  Recently, there has been a morphing of this disease.  Most likely it has come from  overuse of systemic fungicides in our business.  The older variety of dollarspot began with the appearance of cobweb like fungus on the turf, eventually killing the grass, leaving a silver dollar sized pit behind.  It thrived during warm days and cool nights with a lot of dew/ moisture.  The disease also thrived under low fertility conditions.  What is so amazing about this morphed dollarspot is fertility does not matter anymore.  Our turf at OCGC is maintained at very healthy nutrient levels.  We are in the midst of conducting chemical resistance testing and reevaluating our control strategies.  I have removed generic labeled chemicals from the greens immediately.  We are reevaluating if we have to change our sprayer pressure and ground speed to apply more mixture on each green.  This dollarspot has been observed on tees, greens and fairways.  What is alarming is how rapidly these smaller spots coalesce together and dmage turf to the crown of the plant and the reduced days of control.  In checking with plant pathologists and the USGA, dollarspot like ours has been very common this winter in the Mid Atlantic.  One thought is it may be due in part to the mild winter not killing off some spores from 2011.   We are on top of this situation and will follow up in future blog posts.  This disease can be tracked by shoes and mowers.