Cool Season Grass Projects

Monday, September 19, 2011

Core Aerating the Tall Fescue areas in preparation for seed.

As we head into the cooler time of the year, we take the opportunity to plant cool season grasses.  Today we aerated and fertilized all of the tall fescue areas on the golf course.  Eventually, most of these areas will be transitioned over to Tifsport or T-10 bermuda grass.  But for now we will be aerating, fertilizing and seeding these areas.  We also overseeded the range tees today.  The side tee and the two forward tees were overseeded with Perennial Ryegrass as well as the target greens.  We should see germination in 7 - 10 days.  The ryegrass looks great and stripes out well but you are still hitting off of the dormant bermudagrass.  Since bermuda does not recover during the winter, we will see these divots well into June.  For this reason, we are not overseeding the back range tee with ryegrass.  This will keep traffic off of the back tee and promote healthy bermudagrass next spring.  Ryegrass competes with the bermuda for sunlight, nutrients and moisture and shades the bermudagrass which negatively affects plant health.  The overseeded tees should take us through May 1 and then we will have a perfectly healthy back tee to use while the other tees heal in from winter use.  Today, the greens were spiked, topdressed and fertilized to promote lateral growth.  The staff is also working on mowing and pulling bermudagrass runners in the bunkers.  Have a good week.