Spring is finally here!

I believe we have finally made it to Spring, with the next two days feeling a little like Summer.  Greens have healed from aerification and bermudagrass is finally growing.  There is some disease on the bermuda.  It isn't damaging anything, it's just unattractive.  Large patch is something that we get a little bit of every year, but with the cool, wet spring that we have had, there seems to be quite a bit more than usual.  As the temperature goes up, the bermuda will grow right out of it.

 

 

This week, the installation of the fan on seven was finally finished.  We are waiting on Dominion Power to make their connections and we should have power within the next seven days.

 

 

 

On Monday, we had the chance to demo a couple of new pieces of equipment.  The first was a verti-cutter/flail mower/vacuum.  The Wiedenmann Super-Vac 600 has the ability to verti-cut our fine maintained turf or mow down our native areas.  While performing either of these tasks, it vacuums up all of the debris at the same time.  This allows us to eliminate one part of the process and golfers don't have to deal with the delay in cleanup time. 

 

As you can see, there is nothing left to clean up

 

The second piece that we were able to demo was a deep tine aerifier.  This aerifier will be able to break through our very hard, clay soils to a depth of 11".  Aerifying that deep helps greatly with compaction and rooting.  It will help with drainage, as well.  When our soils dry out, there is nowhere for the water to go.  These deep channels will help get water into the soil, instead of just running off to the low areas around the course. 

 

When using solid tines, there is very little disruption to the playing surface

We have been very busy over the last couple of weeks and our summer help can't get here soon enough!