Thursday, March 21, 2013
If you don't like the weather in Richmond, Virginia, just wait a day. It will change. The snow this morning really sums up what kind of month we have had. Even though yesterday was technically the first day of spring, mother nature has decided not to cooperate. It has been wet and cold with a smattering of a few warm days here and there to get our hopes up. I for one, am ready for warmer weather. (In July, I will be regretting this statement.)
It has been two weeks since the drill and fill process and greens are growing as fast as we can push them. They have been mowed and rolled a few times and recovery, though slow, is occurring. Warmer weather will speed our recovery. Our team has been busy with drainage projects, stump grinding, wire and fan installation, and with the installation of a new walk path to the first green. To date, all of the fan wire has been installed and the concrete bases for the fans have been poured. We will wait another 10 days for the concrete to set up before we install the fans. The wire and drainage has been installed for the SubAir unit on #11 and the team from SubAir will be coming in April to help us finish that installation. The five fans and the SubAir unit were delivered last week. We have also installed drainage in front of and behind the 8th green complex and our team continues to manually drill and fill areas on putting greens.
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| The five fans and sub air unit were delivered and will be installed over the next few weeks. The SubAir unit is underground and not visible from the course. |
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| The manual drill and fill process allow us to pinpoint areas for improvement. We have focused on areas that typically stay wet, high traffic areas and pin locations. These areas should be drier, firmer and have deeper rooting. |
The walk path to the first green was installed thanks to a generous donation from Collegiate High School. The school donated pieces that were left over from an athletic field installation and our team was able to put them to good use. This should provide a safe, durable walkway to the first green.
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| The walkway was excavated down 4 inches. Metal edging was installed to contain the material and maintain a hard edge between synthetic and real turf. Crusher run was then installed and compacted to provide a sturdy, permeable base. |
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| A porous, landscape fabric was installed over the crusher run to keep weeds out of the walkway. Finally, the synthetic turf was installed. |
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| After the synthetic walk way was installed, crumb rubber and sand were brushed in to stand up the grass and provide a safe walk way. When good sod is available, our team will sod either side of the walkway. Thanks again to Collegiate High School for the donation and to our own Dan Smith for researching and installing this product. |
The golf course will be closed on Tuesday,
March 26th. During this time, our team will complete the greens aeration program that was scheduled two weeks
ago. During the closed days earlier this month, we experienced snow that
prevented the completion of the process. The process that is scheduled is
called DryJect. This process is less invasive than a typical core aeration and will not delay recovery from Drill and Fill. The DryJect does not remove any material so our team performed an additional core aeration this week to remove thatch. We used very small tines to minimize disruption. The DryJect does not
replace aeration because it does not remove thatch from the greens but
is a great process in conjunction with traditional core aeration. The DryJect process injects sand into the greens and allows the greens
to recover much faster than a typical core aeration. This process will
be performed in the fall of the year as well. Here is an article that our late USGA agronomist Stan Zontek wrote about the use of DryJect at Congressional CC in preparation for the US Open.
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| Sand is introduced and the profile is aerated through the DryJect sand injection. Because no material is removed, bulk density is increased and in turn, firmness. It is a great tool to introduce new sand into the profile, improve drainage, and increase surface firmness. |
The year has been very productive so far. As soon as the weather changes, the turf should kick into high gear. Warmer weather will speed putting green recovery from aeration and will allow the bermudagrass to break dormancy and begin to grow. Last March was abnormally warm and provided great growing conditions for our tees and fairways very early. This year will be more typical with growth beginning in mid to late April.
Stay warm and have a great weekend,
Jordan Booth
jbooth@willowoakscc.org
