Fertilizer and growth regulator being sprayed on fairways this week. Trying to get rid of these seed heads. 

Seems to be a trend

This rain will not stop! We received another 2.25" last night! This puts us over 4" for the month of July and over 31" for the year. The average annual rainfall for Richmond is 43.91". I think we will get there.

All of this rain puts a huge strain on the turf and the turf care team. Not only are we unable to work when it is raining, but once we do finally dry out, our labor hours are used for cleanup or bunker work. After this round of rain comes through today and tonight, we will have had to fix wash outs in the bunkers three times since the first of the month. This equates to about 240 man hours spent on repairing bunkers. That slows down all other maintenance work that needs to be done on the course.

 All of these washouts need to be repaired by hand

 

Another thing that we had to do is vent greens twice in the last two weeks. The first time we used solid tines just to open the greens up a little. This week we pulled 1/4" cores. This process helps us dry out. It also helps get oxygen to the roots. When the greens are this wet, the roots will begin to suffocate. By opening up the surface, it helps the plants breathe again.

This is what the greens look like after venting

 

 

Have a great weekend and try to play some golf in between rain drops! It has to stop eventually, right?!

Rain, rain, go away!!!

We have been extremely wet this spring and the last few days have been no different. We finished June with 8.5 inches of rain for the month. Two inches came down Sunday to finish the month off. Apparently we are going to continue this trend in the beginning of July. We got another 1.5 inches yesterday, with more coming today and tomorrow.

All of this rain has gotten us a little behind on a few things. It has been too wet to mow. With all of the rain, we have had some weeds breakthrough. As soon as the course dries off enough to get on it, the mowers will be out in full force and these weeds will be sprayed out. The bunkers have taken a beating over the last couple of days, as well. There is a full crew working to get them back in shape right now. This may take a couple of days to finish, as this is bad as I have seen these bunkers wash.

Hopefully next week we will be venting greens again. This time we will be pulling out 1/4" cores. This process will help open the greens up and dry them out a little quicker. We used these tines on the practice green and the holes were pretty much all healed in three days.