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It is hard to believe that summer is more than halfway over. This summer’s weather has been much nicer than last year's monsoon. We have had a nice balance of typical Philly summer weather, heat waves, thunder storms, and hot nights. The golf course is extremely healthy as we head into the home stretch of summer. Across the region, the golf course turf industry is seeing a bumper crop of weeds this year as a bi-product of last year's rain. Our agronomy team has been hard at work eliminating the pesky out of place plants using a variety of cultural and chemical controls. We have mowed down many of the fescue areas that were inundated with weeds. This is a great ecological way to reduce the population of herbaceous, woody weeds. We will be continuing to mow down many of the fescue areas as part of a multi-step program to improve these areas. Many areas of rough and fescue have been treated with selective herbicides to remove the weeds that subsist after mowing. This fall any thin areas will be over-seeded and fertilized for next season. Our goal in the fescue areas is to create a stand of primary fine fescue that is uniform, playable, and penal without being an automatic lost ball.  In August we will be aerating the greens, tees, and approaches. Thank you in advance for your understanding with the short-term compromised playing conditions. These few days of bumpy greens will set up an amazing fall of golf.
2.25 inches of rain fell last night washing out all of our bunkers. We woke up to lot of work to prepare for this weekend's Championships!  The daunting task of putting our bunkers back together after a major storm like last night takes nearly an additional 40 man hours. Thankfully, with our amazing staff, the work is always done properly and efficiently!  I am pleased to report that because of the excellent condition of our USGA spec greeens we were able to mow and roll the greens this morning and they are roll a smooth 11ft 4in on the stimp meter. Best of luck to everyone in the championships this weekend!
One of the new tools that we have to manage the moisture and chemical conditions of the golf course is our POGO. The POGO is a moisture, salinity, and temperature meter that maps conditions using GPS and creates real time shareable data to help our agronomy team manage the golf course. Using this tool we are able to fine tune our watering, fertilizing, and chemical practices to optimize the playing surfaces.  Summer is truly here! We are currently in the middle of our first heat wave, and the golf course is responding well to the conditions. The aeration and fertility practice of the spring have set up our turfgrass to weather the upcoming stress of summer. During the heat we will be implementing practices to reduce water usage and unnecessary stressors on the playing surfaces. For example the greens will be mowing less frequently, but rotating rolling to maintain proper speed and smoothness. This reduction in the mechanical mowing stress will reduce the inputs needed to manage the greens while keeping them healthy during the extreme heat.
The heat of the summer is also a huge safety concern for you and our staff. I would like to take a moment to remind everyone that during the heat you need to hydrate to dominate. Please remember to take care of yourself and enjoy this amazing summer on the golf course. |
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Tim Edwards tge@rivercrestgolfclub.com Archives
May 2020
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