Hunter Irrigation Audit

 Hunter Irrigation in conjunction with SiteOne Landscape Supply are doing a sprinkler audit and swap out on the Panther Creek Putting green this morning. Shown on the left is Nick Meithe from SiteOne, and Dennis Wagner from Hunter Irrigation. They are collecting data from the old sprinklers on the Practice Green. After the data was collected we swapped out the old sprinklers with new Hunter Irrigation Sprinklers and will then do another audit to see what we gained for coverage. This is a pretty neat process and may come in very handy in the future when we start discussing the replacement of the sprinkler system here at Panther Creek Country Club. I hope to publish the audit numbers when we are completed so you can see the difference. Also a real plus to having them in to do this work is the sprinklers are ours to keep so we definitely benefit along with getting great information.

Gray Leaf Spot

 Recently I have been fielding significant questions and concerns from Panther Creek members regarding the intermediate grass (i.e. the first cut and surrounding rough) throughout the property and especially around greens.  Multiple factors have contributed to the decline and turf loss that is evident in these areas of the course, symptoms of which began to arise after Labor Day. 

The biggest contribution to the decline was a severe outbreak of Gray Leaf Spot on our Ryegrass population within the intermediates.  Gray Leaf Spot is a devastating disease on Annual and Perennial Ryegrass during periods of prolonged excessive heat (82-90+), humidity, excessive rainfall, and highly fertilized turf stands.  The disease pathogen is rapid and can easily spread with rain, wind and mechanical traffic.

Although preventive measures were utilized throughout the season with our chemical program (some intermediates are included in fairway and green sprays), the rainy weather leading into the 5 day stretch of heat (above 90) and humidity caused an outbreak. Once identified, we applied a curative application to the affected areas in hopes of limiting the severity of outbreak, unfortunately, the conditions, and continued rainfall following these weather patterns did very little is stopping the infection.

Annual and Perennial ryegrass cultivars vary in their susceptibility to gray leaf spot, although none can be considered completely resistant. The disease does not affect creeping bentgrass, annual bluegrass, and Kentucky bluegrass. Over-seeding with Turf-Type Tall Fescue, or Kentucky Bluegrass is recommended for repairing perennial ryegrass stands killed by gray leaf spot. We have been over-seeding with a Turf Type Tall Fescue mix called Winning Colors which is a mix of several award winning fescue varieties.  

Aerification

                This has been a wonderful past month. August cooled off and really ended up being a great month for turf recovery. Along with the cooler temperatures we had plenty of rain and sun adding to perfect growing conditions.

 This past week we took advantage of the weather and perfect timing and did some slit-seeding into some of our weaker rough areas along with some of the weak tent areas from the Web.com tournament. When over-seeding I like to use Turf-type Tall Fescue at roughly a 2 pounds per 1000 sq.ft. The Turf-type Tall Fescue is an excellent plant in our area because it will hold on to its color in the heat and takes less fertilizer inputs to stay healthy. We will continue to over-seed in the coming days at the clubhouse grounds, and on the course.

                With the end of summer that means aerification time is fast approaching here. We will be ready to start on tees the day after Labor Day and on greens and fairways starting on Tuesday, September 18^th. My plan is to close holes 1-9 for greens aerification on Tuesday and Wednesday the 18^th and 19^th. On Thursday and Friday the 20^th and 21^st we will continue on holes 10-18. The process will be weather pending and I am hoping the weather cooperates during that week.  On greens our process will start with a .55”x 6” core being pulled from the green and drug to the edge. We’ll then remove the cores with scoop shovels. The seconds step is adding a heavy layer of sand topdressing to the green surfaces. Once the sand  and the green surface has dried we will mechanically broom it into the vacated holes filling them to the top. When we have accomplished that we are going to fertilize the greens with sulfate of potash, and also a balanced fertilizer.

                The Tees and Fairways will be aerified with a .6” by 5.75” coring tine. On Tees the cores will be removed and then we’ll add a heavy layer of sand topdressing. On Fairways once the cores dry on the surface we will chop them up with a flail mower and then drag the cores to break them into very small pieces. After the flail process is complete a blower will be used to blow and sweep and remove the grass tufts off of the fairway surfaces. On Tuesday September 18^th we will start aeration on Fairways. My hope is to have all of the fairways finished by the 21^st.  When finished with the fairways I expect to have carts on path for hopefully only a few days. After that we will monitor every morning when there is dew on the grass to determine what our cart status is at which point we will communicate with the pro shop staff. If having carts on path is an issue with your playing of the course please call the pro shop before you come out to play to make sure we are carts off path or what restriction we have.

                I appreciate the opportunity to do this type of maintenance on the course knowing full well it takes some of the best time to play golf out of your season. I know moving forward that this work being done on an annual basis will lead us as a club to better turf and also to a better preforming golf course.

As always if you have any questions or concerns please contact me anytime.

Greg Willman     gwillman@panthercreekcc.com