Aeration Complete

Well the aeration is finally done after being delayed for a day because of the rain. Started at 2 this afternoon and had everything cleaned up by 5:30. Turned out to be a great day for it!

648 ready for action

Using 1/8" tines makes for an easy clean up. The cores dry out quick and are really light. 

Aeration complete, top dressed drag matted and brushed. All it need is some water and fert. 

I never had a chance to top dress this year so I went with a heavy application. Looks like rain in the forecast most of the week and I adjusted the reel height from .130 to .150 so it wont pick up as much sand and will allow the plant to grow in.


Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qrHgY2ZdkM

Aeration

Well I am finally home for Thanksgiving weekend, which means good food, visiting family and finally getting a chance to aerate my green. Yes it is late in the season, but i'll take what I can get when I have an opportunity to borrow a 648 Toro Procore from my club. This is the second time aerating the green and it will need many more before I can get a significant amount of sand into the profile. However it does help especially for water drainage which I have issues with because the soil beneath is clay.

This post will be continued throughout the weekend as I begin the aeration process. I will update with photos and videos. 

Why I Chose the Turf Industry

Growing up around the game of golf, I never gave it much thought or appreciated the work that goes into maintaing turf on a golf course. Even when I was working in the backshop or proshop I took for granted the amazing condition St. Thomas G&CC has always been in. I thought about working on the greens staff as I worked around the club house, but doubted my ability to be at work for 5:45 am and was intimidated by all the equipment I would have to learn to operate. Wade Beaudoin, our head superintendent, was known to run a 'tight ship' and was sometimes seen sending staff members home for not doing their job correctly and failing to follow instructions, this kind of thing never happened up around the club house. After talking with our previous assistant Paul Grovesnor, he encouraged me to give it a shot for a season, making the point of having something different to do and taking on new challenges each day. So I took his recommendation and joined the St. Thomas greens staff in summer of 2010. It didn't take long for me to become comfortable with everyday jobs and feel as though I was a part of a team. Knowing the expectations of a golfer, I payed attention to fine details and did my best to create a finished product that I would be happy to play on.  This job provided me with a much greater appreciation for what the greens staff does to maintain a golf course and I feel that there are to many golfers who take the course for granted.

St. Thomas is currently in the process of removing many trees around the course to improve the growing environment around certain greens. This is some of the work completed last winter.

Link:  http://www.stthomasgolf.com/index.cfm?ID=587

My Back Yard Putting Green

August 2014

Since I started playing golf when I was young I have always wanted a back yard putting green, but never thought it was possible. I had tried alternatives such as lowering the height of my dads rotary mower as low as it would go and scalping the nice lush grass in early summer only to watch it die. Then I turned to an old manual reel mower, but they only cut so short and never made for a good putting surface. After working on the greens staff for 3 years and thinking over how much work it was going to take, I began a lengthy project of forming a backyard putting green only using cores from our spring aeration mixed with bent grass seed.  Before I put the cores down I sprayed roundup to kill the existing grass.  After spreading out the cores in the spring, I left them to establish throughout the summer of 2011 only using the manual reel mower too keep the height just below 1 inch. I was also waiting to purchase a Toro Flex 21 from my course which they were selling at the end of the season. So by the end of Fall 2011 I was left with this (below).

It doesn't look like much but you can see the slight colour difference from the poa and bent to the other lawn grass.

The next step was purchasing a mower, which I did over the winter and helped my mechanic rebuild the reel bearings, change the oil and transmission fluid, replace some belts and sharpen the reel and bedknife. I made the first cut in April and as you can see the difference is incredible.

2006 Toro Flex 21

Right after the first cut, the height was set at half an inch. 

Mid summer, a few brown spots but overall pretty good. 

After the first summer the turf held up pretty good. I didn't realize how exhausting it would be when I only had time after work realizing I had to get the mower out to cut and then water it. However it is worth it and has been a great learning experience.

Last fall I decided to make the green even larger and was also able to borrow an aerator from the course. This allowed me to establish more bentgrass on both the new section and the original section.

Just after aeration. 

Late fall, the new section slowly establishing. I also took out the Austrian pine, which I discussed in my first post. 

 After over seeding several times, the green has filled in very well. I had some impact from snow mould, but it just grew out. I have managed to get the height of cut down to 1/8" any lower and the mower starts to scalp over the undulations. Being built on clay with only small amounts of sand from top dressing, it doesn't have the best drainage. Besides that there haven't been any other issues so far.

August 2013

 July 2014

BMO Field Trip

On Thursday we took a trip to see the operation at BMO field which is home for Toronto Football Club, and also holds premier league matches. Field manager Rob Heggie said it is one of the nicest fields in North America and is the benchmark for new technology. The field consists of both Kentucky Blue and Annual Rye grass, and is built on a USGA spec soil profile. Under that soil is a sub air system to regulate field moisture and oxygen levels, as well as a glycol heating system to extend the growing season allowing for a playable field all year round if necessary. This system makes a turf managers job much easier because they set up the ideal growing environment for growing flawless grass.  This trip certainly gave me a new perspective of the turf industry and has me thinking about a career path in sports turf.

Toro happened to be there for the aeration day at BMO and brought lots of equipment.

Aeration in progress.

Heating and sub air systems. 

Their practice facility is no slouch either. Three natural turf fields and two artificial. This also has an in-ground sub air system.

Link:  http://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/stnew/article/1989may6.pdf

Field Trip to Burlington G&CC

Our visit to Burlington G&CC has by far been the best trip yet. We met up with superintendent Dean Baker and assistant Jeff Lockhart who took us on a great tour of the course pointing out several issues they are addressing to provide the members with more of a golf course type feel as David Otis from the USGA pointed out, the course has turned into a really nice park. 
Dean has been in the industry since he was 15 years old, rounding up most of his career at Glen Abby, this was his first year at Burlington. It appears as though Dean and Jeff have a very good relationship and have great communications skills allowing them to win over the membership’s support to make changes to the course. These changes are necessary to maintain healthy turf. With an operating budget of 1.2 million Dean and Jeff have been given the go-ahead to, as Dean says, “have some fun”. Dean stresses the importance of fertility for protection from diseases and insects. If the turf is kept healthy then it should be able to fight off anything, only spray chemicals when necessary. Removing trees will also help the turf to receive full sunlight to promote turf health, especially for bentgrass. Dean has also taken a new step in deciding not to cover greens over the winter because it allows the bad Poa to survive. Why cover greens if you don’t cover fairways and tees. 
Both Dean and Jeff had some great advice for us and appear to do their job so well they make it look easy. Superintendents have always been the backbone of a golf course but have only recently been recognized as that. At the end of the day, members aren’t there for the club facilities or food, they are there to play golf. 

You can follow Dean on his blog:   http://www.burlingtongolfclub.com/index.cfm?ID=184

Testing Poa supina in the Shade

At the back of our house we have three matured serviceberry trees (Amelanchier laevis). Each year the amount of sunlight that reaches the landscape below decreases. As you can see, the shade began to thin out the turf below which mainly consisted of Annual Bluegrass, Kentucky Blue and Ryegrass. The conditions were deteriorating each year.

Working at St. Thomas G&CC we were re-soding a few tee decks and I was given the opportunity to try a newly introduced species known as Poa supina. Supina is a cool season grass known to be shade tolerant and is distinct from many other grasses because of its lighter green colour. I received the Poa supina sod late spring 2011 and installed it in the narrow path area beneath the serviceberries, where minimal sun was reaching the turf.

The path beneath the trees before.

Poa Supina right after installation

After Installation

Fall 2012 - The Poa supina showed great success in the summer of 2011 and summer of 2012. Summer 2012 was a challenge because of the heat, I was watering it every couple days to keep it cool and moist.

     

Late September 2013 - After just over three years, the Poa supina has yet to disappoint. It loves cool weather so it tends to come out of dormancy earlier and go into dormancy later than any other grass on our property. Highly recommended if you can afford it!!                            

Link:  http://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/mitgc/article/1996215.pdf

Observe Other Practices

Observing and understanding practices used by other courses can be beneficial to improving your practices. This is where communication is important, either with other superintendents or turf managers in your area, having good connections with them is key.

A helpful resource I have found is a blog from Pinehurst golf club in Colorado. They keep their blog up to date and post articles I have found to be useful. Ontario golf courses can relate to their practices because it is roughly the same climate, however they may experience winter conditions slightly more extreme than ours. It appears as though they have access to all the newest equipment which allows you to see what works well and what doesn't.

Link:  http://pinehurstcc.blogspot.ca


Photo of the week:
A cutworm found on my green the other day. I haven't had to much of an issue with them so far, but I can tell their numbers are increasing. Having a clay loam based green makes it easy to spot their holes and I am usually able to flood them out.

Importance of morning sun on turf

This is a small scale adjustment to help my backyard green obtain more morning sunlight. The back portion of the green was really struggling because it did not receive sunlight until about 11 am in June and July. As a result, the turf in this area became infected with disease, mostly dollar spot. Without the morning sunlight, the grass plant remains wet for an extended period of time making it more prone to disease.  By mid July, this section of the green was in very poor condition and I came to realize that at least one tree had to come out and the others limbed up. Below is a picture before any work was done.

In the fall I removed the smaller Austrian Pine and limbed up three others that were further back as well as take out the bushes for a better visual from the back end of the yard. The second picture shows the result after the work was done, the back portion now receives morning sunlight. Because it was late in the fall, sunlight to the front is blocked by a shed, but in the summer months this is not an issue. 

Those changes were made in 2012. In 2013 the turf showed major improvement. Below is a picture of the green in late August 2013 at around 10am. It is more open in the surrounds behind the green, allowing not just for morning sunlight, but for better airflow as well. It is also important to note, if turf has too much shade, it provides a better growing environment for Poa Annua. However if shade is reduced or eliminated, its gives a much better chance for bent grass to compete.  

Link:  http://bentgrassdoctor.com/maintaining_greens_in_a_hot_climate