STALEY FARMS GROUNDS BLOG

Well once again Mother Nature has proven that she is in control, and also that she can't make up her mind on what season we should be in. The redbud and cherry trees sure did look good in the snow though. I thought the golf course woke up better this year than my 2 previous springs. I think that the warm temps we had are probably the biggest cause of that, but I also like to think that the slow release fertilizer I put out last fall did it's job. I believe I will continue that practice and hopefully we can green up like that every year.

Aerification time came around as the greens were looking their best, naturally, and I was very happy with how it turned out. I changed up my rotation a little and I think it paid off. The order of steps in the past had been; sand, aerify, drag, and then roll. I just thought that all the tire tracks from dragging caused major waves in the green and were miserable to try and smooth. This year we rolled right after the aerifier did it's thing, and then drug the sand into the holes. I think this made the green much firmer which in turn lessened the waves from pulling the drag mat around. This is another practice that I plan on continuing. Our weather luck ran out shortly after and has really slowed down the healing process. We started having consistent frosts and the past couple nights have been below freezing. We are almost completely covered back over, but it feels like its taken forever. I have a few pictures below to show some proof of our progress and why it is so important to aerify regularly. Not that I have gotten any complaints because I aerify, but sometimes its just nice to see something working, especially when that thing is as annoying as greens aerification.

The first picture is from last fall and the last three are from the past 2 weeks. We have a lot of good looking roots throughout the entire rootzone, however the new, clean sand channels are where you find the best.

At the moment I would say that the drain lines installed this past winter have been a success. I would still like to see how they perform after some summer downpours. There is still a lot of work to be done to get these areas back to a solid stand of bentgrass, but I have a plan. In the past couple weeks I have seeded these areas in hopes that I can get some bent to compete against the poa that is taking over these places. When fall arrives I will begin using a brand new chemical which kills poa annua out of bentgrass. This is the first chemical ever that could make that claim. This guy is going to make a billion dollars!

There are quite a few courses in our area that are starting to use this product, but mostly on their greens. Our greens at Staley are actually pretty clean, but I plan to start testing this in our fairways. I have spoke with the developer of this product about my plans and he has built me a small program to follow. He will be making a trip to KC in the near future and plans to visit me to look over the areas I am thinking about. It is a slow death to the poa, which allows me to continue to pump bent seed into these areas before there are large voids of turf. I will probably start my trials by spraying 1 boom width down the middle of these drain line areas before I start attacking other areas. If this works then I could really clean up some of the fairway edges and troughs so I am pretty jacked about this.

I feel pretty good about the range tee grow in, but I would feel a lot better about it if we could get some sunshine and warmth. I continue to fertilize and topdress weekly and I believe that we can probably start using it by June 1. I have mowed it once and plan on mowing it again tomorrow morning as long as we don't receive too much rain tonight. Throughout the season on Mondays I hope to heavy sand and seed each divot row from the week before. With golf not starting until noon I believe I should be able to accomplish this before we move to work on the course.

One last thing I need to address is that Grant, my assistant, is no longer my assistant. He accepted the Superintendent position at Prairie Highlands at the end of March. He served his 2 weeks notice and has now moved into his new role. This is awesome for him and will be a very good start to his career. I was very lucky to have him for as long as I did, but now I must find a replacement. At this point, I have not had any luck with my postings. Our industry took a big hit with the recession in 2008 and we have been seeing the affects in the last couple years. From 2008 to 2010 a lot of courses closed their doors across the country which placed a lot of qualified superintendents in the unemployment line. At that point assistants were going up against former supers for job openings. This kept most assistants an assistant for a lot longer period than previously. Before this it was very common for an assistant to make the big jump after only 3-5 years. Now it is pretty common for somebody to hold that title for over 10 years, like yours truly. This ultimately made people lose interest in this career and student numbers in turf programs have been on a steady decline for quite some time now. So I need a little luck!

Well I think that about wraps up what I wanted to touch on. I will do my best to continue to update this blog each month, but I can't promise anything until I find my next assistant. Good thing is that I seem to have been very successful in finding general laborers as long as they all follow through. I have already trained 1 new guy on bunkers and tees and hope to have another starting next week sometime. Then I have 2 college students and at least 2 high school students that will be starting with me once they get out of school. If I could get bunkers raked at least 5 times a week, tees and approaches mowed 2 times a week, and fairways mowed 3 times a week you would be looking at a very happy guy.

Lets all hope for more of these days