COURSE UPDATE

PYTHIUM BLIGHT

Pythium Blight has attacked some of our fairways and tees. #13 fairway, 4 tee box, and 11 fairway are the areas that have been hit the worst. I have changed our watering habits to water in the early morning in these areas to try to minimize the optimal conditions that we have experienced int he past few weeks. We have treated these areas with a fungicide to stop the fungus in it's tracks and allow the grass that remains to thrive and fill in the voids.

PYTHIUM FACTS:
Pythium blight may develop when night temperatures exceed 65°F and leaves are continually wet for 12 to 14 hours for several consecutive nights. For this reason, severe Pythium blight epidemics are commonly observed the morning after a late afternoon or early evening thunderstorm in the summer. Daytime temperatures above 85°F also encourage Pythium blight development, possibly due to increased stress on the turf. Excessive soil moisture and succulent foliar growth also favor disease development.

Perennial ryegrass and annual bluegrass are most prone to Pythium blight and can sustain significant damage in 2 to 3 days when conditions are favorable. Creeping bentgrass and tall fescue are more resistant to the disease, but can be severely affected if conditions are conducive for prolonged periods.

DRIVING RANGE TEE

The driving range tee is another area that has been hit hard with the heat and traffic. We have identified several irrigation issues on the tee box. We are working hard to repair these wiring and sprinkler head issues so we can recover the tee box as quickly as possible. We will seed next week and we will determine the best plan for member utilization of the turf tee box while promoting seed germination and recovery for our long fall season. We plan to close the turf tee for two weeks. The golf shop will communicate the opening date to you once we have determined the best plan for fall recovery.

GRUBS

We saw our first grub damage last week on the course. It is optimal time to see the grub damage as they are eating the roots of our turfgrass and we can see the brown areas from the turf starving for water. The most evident sign that you have grub problems is the racoons and skunks dig the ground up looking for the grubs to eat them. We treated our bentgrass fairways, greens, tees, and collars with a preventative insecticide. These areas will be fairly clean, but the roughs have not been treated and you may see areas that the little critters are chewing away at our grass. I will treat the higher profile areas that they are damaging such as the rough on the left side of 8 fairway. You may see a few areas in the bentgrass (3 and 5 approach) but we will treat these areas with an insecticide to manage any breakthrough from the preventative treatment.

If you see grubs at your house and want to treat them, you can purchase bayer grub killer plus. It is available at gardening stores. Apply it according to the label and make sure you water it in thoroughly.

YELLOW NUTSEDGE

This is a nasty little weed. You see it all over the golf course. It is a difficult weed to kill as it has a nut located in the ground that it stores nutrients in and when we kill the leaf blade it is able to regenerate from the nut at a later date. We have it everywhere and we are treating it as we can. It is very expensive to treat and we are focusing on the worst areas. The areas in the fairways and on the tees are not going to be treated until next week as I don't like to treat bentgrass with herbicides when it is as hot as it has been. We will focus on these areas next week and you should see improvement in the next ten days or so.

The weather will break this weekend and we should be able to recover quickly from the banged up turf areas we have right now. A little cool weather and a nice rain will help us more than anything. I will seed 13 fairway in the worst areas and I will seed all of 4 tee box. These areas should make a rapid recovery and we will have all fall to enjoy our Bentgrass as that is when it is at it's best.

MOSS ON GREENS

We have moss on some of our greens.  Moss has been a recent phenomenon on putting greens.  It has really made a presence in the past 10 years.  It is related to many things that we do to our greens to make them putt nice and smooth.   Things such as mowing short, low fertility, rolling, and double cutting all promote moss.  We have been spraying a herbicide since I started at Staley to suppress the moss.

We are going to ramp up the program starting to try to eradicate this nuisance.  I have spoken to many colleagues that have overcame this problem and I am going to take a few tricks I have learned and apply them to our greens.

The aeration program that we have should improve the upper tier drainage of the greens helping us keep this pest at bay.  

I expect to see weekly improvements with ultimate success in a few months.  Once we shrink the moss the bentgrass will fill as it does  with ball marks.

Now that we have moss on the greens we will always treat with a herbicide too keep it suppressed but you shouldn't see any major infestation next year.

HOW MUCH WATER

Water is a critical component to managing quality turf.  Especially Bentgrass and we have 50  acres of bentgrass including tees, fairways, and greens.  All turf requires water and different turf species require different amounts.  Zoysia and Bermuda require the least amount, followed by tall fescue, then bluegrass, and finally bentgrass and poa annua having the highest requirement especially mowed at 1/2" and shorter.

We use different tools to determine how much water the turf needs to survive each day.  We break it down into daily needs and try to supplement each day what the turf requires to maintain healthy turf.  One of the first things we look to is Evapotranspiration.

Evapotranspiration-
Evapotranspiration (ET) is the loss of water from a vegetative surface

through the combined processes of plant transpiration and soil evaporation
(ET is equivalent to and frequently referred to as consumptive use). 
Both environmental and biological factors affect ET. Important environmental
factors include solar radiation, temperature, atmospheric dryness (vapor 
pressure deficit), wind and soil moisture.  Biological factors affecting ET
include type of vegetation, foliage geometry and foliage density.  Paul W. Brown Extension Biometeorologisthttp://ag.arizona.edu/azmet.

On average in the summer months we see daily ET numbers between .10" to .25".  

Precipitation Rates-

We must determine the precipitation rates for our sprinkler heads.  Precipitation rate is the amount of water the sprinkler head  puts out in inches per hour.  Knowing this number is critical to managing water.  We look to the manufacturer of the sprinkler head to find the precipitation rates and other data for the sprinklers.

Calculations-

We know how much water we need and we know how much water our sprinkler  heads put out.  For example if we need to apply .10" of water and our sprinkler heads put out .6" of water per hour we will water 10 minutes to replenish the water loss for that day.

Calculating water need after a rain event can be tricky.  If the rain comes hard and fast sometimes it doesn't soak in.  I have seen a .5" rain event and the turf required watering within 24 hours.  I have also seen a .5" rain last three days before turf needs water again.  I scout the  golf course following rain events to evaluate irrigation needs paying special attention to the mounds and low basins as the two will be vastly different in the water needs after a rain event.  Typically we can go a day or two after a rain event before we water resume irrigating after a rain event.

I use a 4" screw driver to determine the water content in the soil.  I push the screwdriver into the soil paying attention to how much force it takes to sink the screwdriver in the soil.  Extremely dry soil is nearly impossible to get any penetration. Saturated soil the screwdriver will go in with ease.  I target somewhere in the middle.  

Central Control System-

We have an elaborate system that controls our sprinkler heads.  The majority of our sprinkler heads are valve in head meaning each sprinkler head has its own self contained shut off valve.  We have satellite controllers on the course  that are wired to the sprinkler heads.  The satellite controllers have computer components in them that are capable of communicating with the central control computer that is located in my office.  This irrigation control package allows us to operate the sprinkler heads from a smart phone, in the field with the satellite boxes, or from the computer.  The central computer that is located in my office is the brain of the system.  We built the central computer this spring loading into the control system database extensive information about the system including sprinkler head type for each station including precipitation rate, flow rate in gallons per minute, radius arc of the sprinkler head, nozzle type and how many heads are wired to that station.  We are continually editing this database and each day we get a little more detailed in our data entry.  We are now to the point that we are determining soil types for each zone and dialing the system to account for clay or sand soils that drain differently requiring different irrigation needs.  This is a work in progress but we are making progress each day.  Our next goal is to upload an aerial image of the golf course and map our irrigation heads on this map so we are more detailed in our management of the sprinkler heads factoring shade and other components that factor into the irrigation requirements.  We hope to have the mapping portion of the database completed this winter.

Water Flow Management-

Another important task for the central control system is to manage how much water flows through the pipes on the course.  Engineers determine the safe flow rates for irrigation pipes.  They use a rule of 5 feet per second for safe water flow through a pipe.  Our central control system takes this into account when it runs the sprinkler heads on the course.  We have a pump station that is capable of pumping 2500 GPM.  Each golf hole is capable of flowing approximately 200 gallons per minute with the pipe size that we have supplying these holes.  Flow management is a critical and proper flow management reduces irrigation leaks with less water hammer and supplies the sprinkler heads with adequate pressure to optimize the performance of the sprinkler as it irrigates the turf.  

Greens Water Management  

We micromanage greens.  We use TDR meters to manage moisture in our putting greens.  I have used these meters for three years.  They are the industry standard for managing moisture in putting greens.  The meter tells us the volumetric water content in the green.  We test the top 4" of the green and the meter tells us the VWC number.  We know that a golf green that has approximately 15%-20% VWC holds approach shots well and has proper water to air balance in the open pore spaces in the sand based root zone of the green.  We also know that our greens will wilt if they drop  below 10% VWC.  We water with our sprinkler heads to target a 20% VWC each morning and then we supplement the dry areas of the greens with a water hose (hand watering) to achieve a consistent 20% VWC across the entire putting green.  I have followed this program for three years with tremendous success.  Following this program we rarely see greens wilt under drought stress and we have dramatically reduced the need to syringe greens in the afternoons improving playing conditions and member satisfaction on the golf course as we are not interfering with play syringing greens in the afternoon.