Green grass and army worms

Very exciting times the last couple of weeks!  We have one hole left to sprig and that should be complete next week.  We have bentgrass germination on 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 greens!  Six and seven greens will be mowed for the first time on Monday. 

6 green. Almost ready for its first cut!

Close up of 6 green

Our bermudagrass sprigs are doing pretty well.  All of them took and then we had a minor setback.  There has been a pretty significant army worm infestation.  Fall army worms have shown up on all of the new holes, but they have really enjoyed eating the sod on #7.  These worms can do a significant amount of damage in a very short period of time.  They go through an area and eat all of the leaf material off of the grass.  They especially like newly establishing sod, so we have been a never-ending buffet for them.  Within three hours, almost the entire green surround on #7 had been damaged.  It's certainly a scary site.  The good thing is, they don't normally kill bermudagrass.  Everything that they have damaged, is starting to recover.  We were able to act quickly and make a pesticide application. 

This little worm works very quickly!

 





You can see the damage on the left.

More army worm damage

Luis is making our insecticide application

 

 







Sprigs!!!

Big week for our construction!  The first sprigs have hit the ground!  Six and seven have been sprigged, hydro-seeded and the greens have been seeded.  Now we get to make grass grow!!!  Next week we should have 4, 5 and maybe 3 sprigged and greens seeded. 

Video taken from the sprigging machine

 

Hydro seeding #7

A view of the sprig installer

Lots of water once the sprigs hit the ground

 

Luis is using the knobby tires on the bunker rake to dimple the green after we seed

 

 

To get sprigs, the machine that installs them, takes a roll of sod and shreds it into very fine pieces.  Once it hits the ground the installer has a set of discs on it that cuts the sprigs into the gound.  As soon as the installer is done with an area, we take over and water, water, water.  In a couple of weeks, we will see green grass and it quickly takes over the the entire hole.  We plan on finishing the sprigging process by the end of the month.