Roller Base Season...

Brandon Collins, Country Club of Woodmore, Upper Marlboro, MD:

"Summer is here and with it comes the heat and dry conditions. During this time of year, water management is one of the most important things we do as turf managers. Too much or too little can severely impact the health and playability of the golf course.

Several people have asked me why we use the portable sprinklers, or roller bases instead of our in ground system to water areas in the rough. We have an old irrigation system with poor coverage and few heads. There are large areas of rough that these heads either do not reach or have poor coverage. It is necessary to supplement these areas with more water with these to maintain consistent playability and aesthetics.

For those superintendents who follow this blog, yes, that is a Toro 650 on a roller base. Works great!

Visit Brandon's blog at ccwoodmoregcm.com

Bird Baths on the Course

Pat O'Brien, Hyde Park Country Club, Cincinnati, OH:

"Over the next few weeks the Grounds staff will continue to level low areas in the fairways that have traditionally held water and of recently have seen turf decline. As you can see from the photo many of these areas require lifting of the sod and placing soil to move the water away via surface drainage. Areas in the fairways that cannot be raised to allow positive surface drainage will be drained using subsurface pipe and catch basins.

Completing these drainage improvements in the summer is ideal because the Zoysia is actively growing and will heal in rapidly. These areas will be played ground under repair."

Visit Pat's blog at hydeparkgolfandcountryclub.blogspot.com.

Sunscreen for Turf?

Cory Janzen, Westmount Golf & Country Club, Kitchener, Ontario:

"This morning we applied a product called Turfscreen to our greens. This is a new product that contains zinc and titanium which are natural sunscreen products. The idea is that this product will coat the leaves of the grass plant and reduce the amount of ultraviolet light getting through while allowing penetration of the light necessary for photosynthesis. This will result in several benefits to the turf including reduced water usage and increased photosynthesis on hot, sunny days. The product also contains a green dye for enhanced colour."

Visit Cory's blog at http://westmountgreens.blogspot.com.

Livin' On the Edge

Joel Purpur, Park Ridge Country Club, Park Ridge, IL:

"Last week we began our tee edge restoration project. Over the years tee edges can sometimes sway from their original shape and angle. To correct this problem, here at PRCC we began cutting out the misshaped and wavy tee edges (often a mix of bentgrass and bluegrass) and put down new bluegrass sod on a much straighter and well-defined line. We will continue correcting tee edges through out the season, completing a few holes a week."

Visit Joel's blog at parkridgeccgrounds.blogspot.com

Adding some green space...

Craig DeJong, Hendersonville (NC) Country Club:

"The last two green complexes worked on were 9 and 11. These two received a bit of extra work as the greens were returned to their original size and shape.

Because of the massive amounts of bermudagrass surrounding these greens the expansion process required excavating the new green areas 8" deep and adding greensmix for the new bentgrass sod. If we did not excavate the cavity this deep the bermudagrass would simply continue to grow and eventually show its self in the new bentgrass. Bermudagrass is very resilient turf. Only cutting out the sod leaves massive amounts of rhizomes that can regenerate quickly.

The greensmix we used was custom blended for us based on soil samples taken from the existing greens. It was our goal to match the existing mix of the green to what we added.

This project included two bids, one to bring all the greens back to their original shape and size and the other to only replace the sod around the greens along with some miscellaneous work. The cost different was significant. Fortunately, we were able to do a couple of greens. 9 and 11 were chosen due to their proximity to the driving range tee, putting green, and entrance driveway putting them on display for numerous members and guests to notice the work of the expansion. Expanding the greens gives us quite a few additional pin locations and originality."

Removing bermudagrass for the expansion #9	Bermudagrass rhizomes left after removing the sod
Coring out the expansion area #9	Adding greensmix
Compacting greensmix in expansion area	New sod/new green #11

Panoramic view #9

Visit Craig's blog at hccgcgd.blogspot.com.

Take-All Patch...

Chris Tritabaugh, Northland Country Club, Duluth, MN:

"Playing the golf course over the past week or so you have likely noticed the ugly patches on the approach of the first and many other holes. While these patch at first appear to be dry spots they are in fact the symptoms of a disease called take-all patch. Now, the name of this disease sounds much worse than it is, we are not in danger of this disease "taking all" of the golf course. Take-all is one of the few diseases which affects bent but does not affect Poa annua. Fine fescue is another species of turf also not affected by take-all. In the photo below you can see a patch of take-all just left of my car key. The bentgrass in this area has been affected by the disease but fine fescue and Poa in the middle of the patch are untouched.

Take-all patch is not a prominent disease but when it does occur it is difficult to control. The disease is active in the fall and spring. The pathogen attacks the plant's roots but does not kill the plant directly. When summer stress occurs the plant's root system is compromised and the resulting symptoms make it appear as if the plant is drying our, which in a manner of speaking it is.

The video shows that while the patches appear to be under moisture stress, the moisture levels are in fact very adequate.

We have seen take-all patch here at Northland before but never in the amounts we are seeing this year. Fungicide applications for take-all are expensive and hit or miss in there effectiveness. The pathogen is active under very specific conditions and if the fungicide application is not timed perfectly then it goes to waste. Fortunately studies have shown that take-all can be nicely suppressed with the micro nutrient manganese. Going forward we will work to suppress the disease culturally, avoiding expensive fungicide applications. The areas in which take-all has been seen in the past have been seeded with fine fescue. We will begin timing manganese applications to best suppress the disease. Finally a granular fertilizer is being applied to affected areas to speed recovery.

We do not have many turf diseases which affect the golf course here at Northland. We have geared our entire cultural approach for not just great playing conditions but to also suppress disease in the most economical and environmentally friendly manner. For us, these efforts have been very successful and I have no doubt with some tweaking they will be successful for suppression of take-all patch as well."

Visit Chris's blog at northlandgrounds.blogspot.com.

Bat Houses...

Jason Hooper, Quilchena Golf Club, Richmond, British Columbia:

"It's no doubt that our golf course provides the highly populated and developed city of Richmond with some much needed green-space, but did you know it also provides an ideal habitat for wildlife? Along with our resident swan, coyotes and bird species, this year alone we have spotted great horned owls, sandhill cranes, great blue herons, snakes (non-poisonous) and even a beaver! Many of these critters only visit us for a day or two, but at least they find what our course provides inviting enough for them to stop in.

In a continuing effort to 'go green', we will be installing two bat houses at the far west end of the property along the dyke. We hope the bats will recognize our generosity of providing them with a nice and cozy place to live, and in return will help us to reduce the summer mosquito population. Each one of these bat houses can house up to 300 bats and each bat can consume up to 1,200 mosquitoes in just 1 hour! The quick math on that results in the bats from our two houses consuming up to 720,000 mosquitoes an hour and 17,280,000 mosquitoes in a day! Obviously they don't feed for 24 straight hours, but the numbers are still impressive.

Each one of these bat houses can house up to 300 bats and each bat can consume up to 1,200 mosquitoes in just 1 hour...

According to Canadian Bat Houses: 'Bats are nature's most effective defense against a variety of airborne pests as well as mosquitoes carrying the West Nile Virus. A bat house is an environmentally friendly method to promote mosquito and other pest control. A well-designed bat house will attract bats to the area, and is complimentary to an new or existing pest control program. The purpose of a bat house is to provide bats with shelter that makes an excellent place for 'roosting'. Bat houses are usually occupied in the summer months when bats are not hibernating.'

We are starting with two of these houses, but plan on adding more in the very near future. The houses are 41" tall and 18.5" wide, so they will not go unnoticed.

You are probably asking yourself, "Is the bat symbol really necessary?" Yes, it is. The bat symbol actually plays a role by deterring wood peckers and other birds from damaging the hollow house. These bat houses are also the only Bat Conservation International certified houses made in Canada.

Erin Rutherford and Doug Sinclair from The South Coast Bat Action Team visited us this past Monday to help us choose locations on the course best suited for the houses. One will be installed on the first tree north of the opening we created at #4 green and the other will be located in the former "eagle tree" in the naturalized area at #5 tees and behind #4 green. Erin and Doug have also generously offered to help us monitor them for the first year as the houses become inhabited."

Visit Jason's blog at qgolfclub.blogspot.com.