Water, water, not everywhere...

 With summer storms being hit or miss, the decision to irrigate or not, can be a roll of the dice.  Truth be told, there's likely an average of two or three times each year when we wait until nightfall to make the call on irrigation, and wakeup to find that what looked like a solid line of storms fell apart--or the opposite happens, and the "pop-up" storm has dumped a bunch of water after we gave the heads a couple of spins.  

Beyond the impact on playing conditions, this can be a humbling experience when you are maintaining turf at 1/10" in the transition zone.  Currently, the roots of the Poa in the greens is about the depth of a hockey puck, thus drying down the greens is not an option.  So even if moisture is in the soil profile down deep, we have to manage to what is referred to as the "functional" root zone--that is, where the Poa roots are able to pull water from. 

Many times what appears to be a solid line of rain splits while approaching Philadelphia from the west, leaving Laurel Creek in the "miss" zone as it rains to our north and south after crossing the Delaware River.  A number of years ago there was an article which proposed three possible reasons this storm split may occur:

• The elevation change from the hills of eastern interior Pennsylvania, to the lower, flat elevations of the Delaware River and south Jersey.
• The Delaware River itself may impact the storms as they approach.
• The enormous heat of the city acts to break up storms.

As you can see below, a recent storm begins to split to the north and south as it passes the city, and crosses the Delaware River.

After this line of heavy showers passes Philadelphia and the river, the golf course is left in the "two drops" zone.

Regardless of the reason or reasons this occurs, relying on irrigation is always less uniform than rainfall, and turf rarely responds to irrigation water as it does to nature's water from above.

Obviously having to irrigate this time of year is to be expected.  However, this year has been unusual both in terms of heat as well as the need for supplemental water.  As of July 28, much of the region is way behind in rainfall over the last six week period:

Sooner or later we'll be complaining about how cold and wet it is, but for the moment we're doing whatever it takes to make it through this nasty stretch of weather.  

Goldilocks and Water Management

 The course received approximately 50% more rain than average in June, so it probably shouldn't have been much of a surprise that July was going to be payback time.  With one week left in the month, we are way behind in precipitation, with only 28% of the normal rainfall total for July--which has also clearly lived up to being the hottest month of the year.  Yes, you might not be aware (if you happen to be a cave dweller), but it has been just a tad warm of late...

This extreme weather combination of high temperatures and lack of rain, makes water management critical.  Striking the right balance between too wet and too dry during this kind of weather pattern is challenging to say the least.

Few balls will be plugging on the dormant range field right now.

Most of the golf course, if allowed to dry down and go dormant, will recover without issue when temperatures moderate and available moisture returns to the root zone.  However, areas which go dormant and then have to deal with stresses such as cart traffic, may become severely damaged.  On the other hand, since water is a great conductor of heat, saturated soils can be no better for the turf than dry, with the potential for rapid root loss.  

Additionally, the course's predominantly short-rooted Poa annua greens are constructed primarily of well-draining sand, and will not last long if allowed to dry down.  Hand watering, checking sprinkler arcs and adjusting run times are currently a fulltime job for several staff members.

A slight sprinkler arc adjustment was needed on the back of #16 Champion tee.

So this is where Goldilocks comes into play--both too much and too little water can quickly kill turf at the moment--trying to stay in the "just right" zone for the varied areas and turf species of the course is like walking a tightrope.

While we continue to mow the greens daily at 0.10", we have backed off on other more aggressive cultural practices, such as double-mowing, verticutting, topdressing and rolling.  Course conditions are certainly not fast and firm; but with temperatures approaching 100 degrees and the golf course dominated by "cool season grass" species, this is one of the times of the year when playing defense is the only sound choice for the long-term health and survival of the fine turf.

Some New Tools and Field Trials

 Since the time the golf course was constructed, one of the most challenging maintenance aspects has been the management of the severe fairway mounding.  These areas are definitely subject to more wind and Sun than a flat area, and can dry out very quickly.  Additionally, if we receive a typical fast moving thunderstorm, most of that water doesn't have an opportunity to penetrate the soil, and just runs off the slopes.

Over the years, we have tried a number of things to keep these mounds alive throughout the dog days of summer, and ideally reduce the hand watering labor required to achieve this.  Recently, John Paddock of DryJect brought over their latest amendment injection systems for us to check out.

So this was both another trial for injecting the super absorbent polymer (we're using in all of our divot mix), AquaPerk into the ground, as well as an opportunity to see the new "AquaJect" in action.  With a smaller footprint than a conventional DryJect machine, the AquaJect can be used in a wide range of settings, including both residential and commercial.  

As weather anomalies seem to become more common--and actually less anomalous--the prospect of injecting AquaPerk into your lawn to reduce water use may become quite appealing for homeowners.  One of the unique things about the AquaJect machine is that it allows both granular and multiple liquid amendments to be injected into the plants' root zone simultaneously.  

As we always try to do when evaluating a new product or practice on the course, untreated check plots are left.  We will closely monitor moisture levels in these areas going forward to determine if there is value in continuing this process throughout the course.  After all, the condition of the playing surface above the ground is primarily dependent on the conditions you may rarely see--those beneath the ground!

When "measure twice" isn't enough

 Way back in January the Trex decking was installed on #2/12 bridge, and since then, several people have asked what the hold up has been with adding the anti-slip matting down the center.  Well, when we spaced the Trex decking on this bridge, we used the same measurements as we had for #8 bridge last year--after all, we were purchasing the exact same material for the center.

However, when we received the matting this year, we quickly found out that it would not fit between the Trex boards.  For some reason, PEM, the matting manufacturer, changed the width from 24" to 25".

Hmm, the matting we received last year was 24", the boxes we received this year say "2 ft.", so it seemed pretty reasonable that we should have gotten exactly what we previously did--24" matting, not 25" matting.

What to do?  Well, given all of the angles on this bridge, removing and repositioning the Trex to accommodate this larger mat size wasn't a good option.  We patiently waited to find out if PEM would be doing another run of this material at the stated 24" width--after several months, we were told that they would not.

We were then left with little choice but to trim 1" of material off of 275' of matting.  This was definitely not something we planned for, nor really had time to do mid-season, when our focus should be on the turf.

After many hours, some sore knees and backs got the trimming job done.  With that completed, the matting was installed, and the finished product came out great.  So, yes, we measured twice, but unfortunately had to cut once... 

Have you noticed the Take-All Patch everywhere?

 If this question has you scratching your head, it's because we can say with conviction that you have not seen the widespread Take-All Patch we've dealt with in prior years.  While a few fairways have a slightly mottled appearance from Take-All (like #7, below), you have to look pretty closely to notice it.

So, why no major Take-All this year?  Well, the answer to this question dates back nine months, to last fall.  It was in October that preventative fungicide applications were made.  As a root-borne pathogen, if you wait until you see Take-All damage on the foliage, it's often too late to treat.

Nine months is a long time to wait, but given the positive results, we aren't complaining!