TIME TO START SEEDING

With the chance of Hurricane Isaac pushing some rain our way this weekend, I recommend seeding your lawns starting this week.  I always use the first of September as a guideline for optimal seeding conditions. 

I recommend verticutting your lawns and removing all of the old dead grass and plant material with a bagger or rakes and trash bags.  Then you will incorporate your seed into the top 1/4" of the soil.  You don't want to go too deep but you must get seed soil contact to germinate seed. 

Apply a starter fertilizer at the time of seeding and then begin to water the lawn.  It needs a good soaking daily and if you have an irrigation system I recommend running three cycles per day of approximately 10 minutes per cycle until all of the seed is uniformly germinated.  Then you can reduce your watering to once per day if there is no rain to supplement the soil moisture level. 

FALL GREENS AERATION

We are aerating greens today. We are using 1/4'' hollow tines. September is a huge golf month so we choose to aerate now so the greens will be table top smooth all September.

The 1/4" tines will have a minimal impact on the putting quality of our greens.  They will be putting well the day of aeration.  We incorporate the sand and roll the greens to provide a quality putting experience during this aeration process.

We are currently testing our greens with ISTRC http://www.istrc.com (International Sports Turf Research Center) to determine what our October aeration process will be.  We will adjust our tine sizing and spacing to reflect the soil physical properties and the maturation of our new greens profile.  

CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS

The capital improvement schedule is progressing with the latest upgrades including a brand new cart fleet.  They are awesome and I am so excited to see this much needed improvement.  We also completed some back of the house items including an irrigation update consisting of new handheld radios, new transmitting antennas and FCC compliance with our FCC license.

The impact on the golf course will be more consistent irrigation control. 

Other scheduled capital projects this year will include two utility carts and a greens mower.  We are excited!!!!

HOT AND DRY

http://weatherblog.kshb.com/the-return-of-the-heat-wave-creator/

Please read this latest blog post from a local meteorologist in the kansas city region.

We are over 10 inches below normal rainfall since april 2012.

Golf course superintendent in this region usually use September first as the finish line for the extreme heat... After this date we can begin our fall seeding and recovery projects. Some might even use august 15th as the finish line but I am a little more conservative and shoot for September first.

VENTING GREENS

A little break from the extreme heat.. We are still dangerously dry but at least we are going to have some relief from the triple digit heat. We are taking advantage of the cooler temps as we are needle tining greens this morning. We will roll the greens after we needle tine them and they will roll nice... The venting is important to insure great air exchange for the roots and allow water to percolate through the root zone. This is another positive step in our quest to provide excellent putting conditions at Deer Creek Golf Club.

THIS PRETTY MUCH SUMS UP THE CHALLENGING WEATHER WE ARE DEALING WITH

http://weatherblog.kshb.com/heat-wave-day-10-cold-front-is-a-day-away/

MOISTURE MANAGEMENT

One of the most important components of maintaining quality putting greens is moisture management. Too little water and the plant wilts, too much moisture and the plants suffocate.. There is a delicate balance that we try to maintain. Recently I have been introduced to a tool that many Superintendents have found to be the answer to this challenge. It changes the art of moisture management to an exacting science by calculating the volumetric moisture content in the soil. We know the percentage when the plant wilts as well as the point where the soil is saturated with moisture and we target a moisture level in the middle where the plants thrive and the putting surface is firm and consistent... We have been using these tools at Deer Creek since May and I am completely sold on the concept.. I say it is where Cutting Edge technology and logic collide resulting in awesome tools that change how we manage turf...