First Aerification and Summer Tasks

The maintenance staff here at Jupiter CC just finished our first aerification of the year.  The weather cooperated and we were able to accomplish a great deal in our four days of closure.  With the aerification in the books, we can now start to focus on some tasks to accomplish throughout the summer months ahead.

Weed elimination: Signalgrass, Goosegrass, Nutsedge

Goosegrass sprayed with selective herbicide

As you may have noticed we have been going through and spot spraying signalgrass and goosegrass.  The products used to eliminate these weeds cause a slight discoloration to the turf surrounding the weed, but after the weed dies off the turf will heal and fill in the bare area left by the weed.


To aid in our weed elimination effort we have begun to apply our second bulk fertilizer application which is coated with a pre-emergent herbicide.  This will help prevent goosegrass and other weeds from germinating.

Area of Signalgrass sprayed 

Applying product mix to bunker faces

Bunker face health

With the new bunkers having longer, grassed faces, the club has purchased a specialized fertilizer spreader.  The spreader is called a "Vortex."  With the Vortex we will be able to apply a fertilizer, wetting agent, and nematicide to the bunker complexes all in one application.





Turf  health improvements

Our goal is to have all playing surfaces in the best possible conditions at all times.  Some areas always need a little more attention then others, and that is the case with some select tee boxes and areas of fairways.  We have been applying additional fertilizer to these select tee boxes and areas of fairways. We will continue to monitor the nematode levels and overall strength of the turf in these areas.

The Bunker Renovation Starts

It was an exciting start of 2015 here at Jupiter Country Club.  Last week Superior Golf Concepts began the long awaited bunker renovation.  This project, slated to be completed between 8-10 weeks, will have an effect on every bunker on the course.  Some bunkers will be resized, some removed, and some will just be slightly reshaped.  All bunkers will also have a slightly different look to them.

The old styling of the bunkers had high slopes with large flashes of sand.  This caused for a great deal of washing with heavy rains and a large amount of contamination from the surrounding turf.

 

Sod cutting area to be re-graded

 Superior Golf Concepts will be starting out by striping some sod around the existing bunker, removing the old sand, liner, and drainage.

Removal of old sand, liner, and drainage

New grade allowing better water flow away from bunkers

Some areas that were allowing large amounts of water to flow into the bunkers will also have the sod removed and re-graded to allow water to flow away from the bunker

After all the sand, liner, and drainage is removed, the bunker will then be smoothed to its new shape.  In the picture to the right you can see there is a 3 inch lip that will be carved out to accommodate the new sand.  Everything above that lip will be grassed.


 We hope that everyone gets a chance to come out and play over the next few weeks to watch the bunkers take on their new form.  Not only will they help lessen the damage from the heavy summer rains, but they will help the course take on a whole new look.

New Bunker Complex

 It's my pleasure to announce that the bunker on the left of #3 green has been redesigned and constructed. Superior Golf Concepts came in and did all of the work creating a functioning bunker once again. They reshaped, added new drainage, sod, and G-Angle bunker sand. This particular bunker will be monitored over the course of the season to determine the characteristics and maintenance needed for this bunker. Outlined below is a series of pictures taken during the entire process. The pictures will give you a real understanding of how much work has gone into just this one bunker. 

 The first step in the rebuilding process was stripping back all of the sod to define the work area.

Once all of the sod is displaced from the work area, the mini excavator moves in to start the demo work on the old bunker.

The rough shape of the new bunker complex is starting to come to life after just one of work.

By now the old bunker is a thing of the past. 2 1/2 loads of fill dirt was used to create what you see here.

Once the rough shape of the bunker complex is determined, then we go in and water jet the existing drain line. This will   will be the drain line used to hook the new drainage into.

the rough shape of the bunker is coming to life in the form of a bright orange paint line.

Once the bunker shape is determined, then the drainage is added to the base of the bunker to displace any rain or irrigation runoff.

The yellow arrows represent the drain pipe that will catch all runoff from the green slope. Once sod goes down these will be cut flush to the ground and a drain grate will be placed on top of each pipe.

Due to the steep slope, bunker liner is installed on the face of the bunker to help with stability of the slope and grass that will be laid on top.

Grass is starting to get laid prior to sand being added to the bunker. The grass will be laid working away from the bunker.

9/15 -9/16 Greens Aerification

I would like to inform you that your Jupiter Country Club Agronomy Team has completed our final aerification of the year. As season draws near, we needed to keep our final aerification short and to the point. We scaled back a bit on this aerification to allow for a speedy recovery of the turf. This also allows us to groom the greens in preparation for season. I have included a few pictures of the process from start to finish.

We performed a process called verticutting on the greens. We went at a depth of 1/16" into the canopy of the turf down and back in the same pass with the machine.

In order for us to avoid injury to the perimeter of the putting surfaces, we verticut the green through the collar. This allows us to avoid extensive damage to the green while performing an excellent verticut to the collar.

After the green is cleaned off, we walk mow the putting surface down and back in the same pass with a brush attachment.

This is an illustration of the putting surface with a ¼" of sand. After we sand the greens we come behind with a walk behind aerifier and vent the greens with ¼" solid tine on a 2" x 2" spacing.

The putting surface is then rolled and brushed 2 times to a smooth clean finish. The greens are now ready for a fertilizer application to help the healing process by providing essential nutrients to aid the plant in recovery.

Above is an up close shot of the putting surface on hole #6. Te sand should be completely covered up by the beginning of next week.


The putting surfaces are in great shape coming out of aerification and should be fully healed in within the week.

Enjoy!

Foliar Feeding Fairways

One may ask,  what is "foliar feeding"? Foliar feeding is a process in which you give small amounts of nutrients to the plant directly instead of indirectly as in the case with granular feeding. In most cases the plant recognizes the nutrients in a form in which it is easier for the plant to process and use. Foliar feeding also prevents waste or runoff of unused nutrients or nutrients waiting to be used by the plant.

Foam marker used to identify the previous spray pattern.

Foliar feeding a fairway with a 300 gallon John Deere sprayer

The practice of "foliar feeding" is commonly used when providing nutrients to the putting surfaces of the green. It has no disruption to ball roll and can be dry within :30 minutes of application depending on weather conditions. Foliar feeding also allows the plant to take in the nutrients in a timely manner resulting in very little loss of fertilizer due to uncontrollable conditions. Years ago your best approach to fertility on any golf course playing surface was granular fertilizers. With the technology we have today we are able make foliar feeding more cost effective to the end user.

There are a variety of combinations and products on the market for Golf Course Superintendents to use on his or her golf course. What products to choose is based on the need of that particular golf course. Here at Jupiter CC we use products on our fairways that contain Nitrogen (N), Potassium (K), Iron (Fe), Manganese (Mn), and Magnesium (Mg).

Nitrogen - used for leaf growth and  density, root growth, cart traffic tolerance, heat and cold stress,                     and recuperative potential.
Potassium - used for heat and cold tolerance, strengthens cells of plant, and aids in plant health                                against diseases.
Iron - used for greening of the plant, leaf and root growth, and cart traffic wear tolerance.
Manganese - used by the plant for nitrogen uptake and photosynthesis.
Magnesium - used by the plant for cold hardiness, chlorophyll synthesis and helps with utilizing iron                        and phosphorus.

All of the nutrients can be custom blended by our local suppliers to fit our needs based on soil and leaf tissue samples. We typically only take samples on greens twice a year and a few tees once a year. Currently we are using a blend on fairways referred to as 12-0-0 w/ 3% Fe, 2% MG, !% Mn and 6-0-18. The numbers in sequence with a dash represent Nitrogen - Phosphorus - Potassium. These are the 3 key nutrients in plant health and development.

Summer 2014 Update

As most of you may have noticed, we have had a tremendous amount of rain this summer. Since July 1 we have had over 19" of rain to date. This has caused some set backs in our overall goals for the summer and has caused some adverse conditions throughout the golf course.

The bunkers have taken the brunt of the rain causing major washouts over the last seven weeks. We have discovered that the washouts are happening due to the integrity of the sand which in turn has caused the silts to build in the sand. By having excessive silts in the sand the drains have been compromised and have lost their functionality to remove water from the bunkers. Once your silt levels build the fines of the silt build up in the drain rock and slits in the drain pipe causing a super slow draining of the bunker.We have also determined that the original function of the bunkers does not allow for proper diversion of water around the bunkers. By diverting the water away from the bunkers it would ultimately prevent the excessive rush of water into the bunkers.

The fairways have also had a set of its own issues with water retention. Over the last 2 weeks we shot grades to determine if our drain lines are adequate enough to remove water from the surface of the fairway. We determined that if we are to get a drier surface we simply need to add more drainage to the existing catch basins that already exist. During construction of the golf course it is often difficult to determine if you have installed enough drainage at that particular time. We feel we can make a significant improvement in our surface drainage next summer by adding some more drains throughout our common wet fairways. By doing so it will make for more fairways accessible by cart during our rainy periods. Some areas might take longer to dry down than others after this project due to the water table, but we feel confident that it will shorten the intervals of CPO.

Greens have also been a challenge this summer due to the excessive cloud cover and rainfall. just in the last few weeks we have gone from excessive rain to extreme heat and dry weather. This plays a big part in the health of the green. Excessive rain causes the roots to shrink up closer to the surface. The reason the plant does this is for survival purposes. If the plant is getting water everyday it does not have to put out new roots to go search for water since it is being supplied right at the surface. Once you turn the spigot off, in our case rain, the plant is confused and starts scrambling to find water. Since the roots have shrunk the plant goes into panic mode searching for water. If the plant does not receive the adequate water it needs it will go into a protection mode and show signs of wilt to protect the healthy stands of grass. Once this happens the soil usually becomes hydrophobic. When a plant becomes hydrophobic it repels water instead of absorbing water. When this happens we have to break the surface tension on the soil to allow it to accept water again. This process usually takes 3-4 days of aggressive hand watering before we start to see a change in the volumetric water content. Volumetric Water Content (VMC) is the amount of moisture in the soil which is measured by a determined number based on the plants water requirements. At this point we feel we have the situation under control and are providing the troubled greens with the proper care they need for a full recovery.

Some positives thus far this summer include new flags throughout the golf course, bunker, and chipping greens. We also have completed a spray of the driving range which eradicated 90% of the goose grass and smut grass weeds. We are currently working on a plan to try and eliminate the signal grass that has called the range its home. Among all of the weather we have managed to apply a growth regulator to the fairways and an organic fertilizer to the tee surfaces as well. We also plan on fertilizing the fairways within the next week to build the nutrients back up after the rain flush.

MH - 400 Material Handler Rebuild

 The MH - 400 material handler is a crucial piece of equipment that helps with efficiency when hauling various bulk materials around the golf course. We use this particular machine for hauling sand while topdressing greens, tees, and appraoches. This unit also has an attachment for allowing the user to topdress fairways and other large areas needing sand.

A view of the snapped belt from underneath the MH - 400

During our first aerification this past May, our MH - 400 decided it had enough and snapped the conveyor belt. This was a blow to our overall efficiency during the aerification process and it was not going to be an easy fix. The conveyor belt is the single most important aspect of the machine other than the tractor you need to haul it with. Since the belt broke the MH - 400 was not able to move the sand out of the machine into the topdresser.

Rear view look at the machine midway through stripping it apart. Notice all the rust. 

 Once we determined the belt broke the next plan of attack was to strip the machine of all parts and assess the damage. Since the belt requires so many pieces of the MH - 400 to come off, more often than not the MH - 400 needs a complete makeover. Due to the age of the machine, this was going to be the case with our MH - 400.

Completely stripped machine ready for some body work.

 Once we stripped the machine of all necessary pieces we began to assess our situation and created an action plan for replacement parts. Since our particular machine is nearing the 14 year old stage, we felt it was necessary to rebuild as it would be a cost effective way to save us from not buying a new MH - 400.

Floor of the MH - 400 that houses the belt rollers waiting to be sanded, primed, and painted.

Roller assembly with primer

 To the left is the floor of the MH - 400 after it was sanded and primed. We determined that the best way to prolong this unit was to give it a couple coats of primer and seal the exposed metal with a product similar to Rhino Liner or Line X. The reason for the decision was to give our MH - 400 the best possible scenario to survive another 5 years. Below is a picture of the finished product before being installed back into the body of the MH - 400. This will protect the main roller assembly from sand and water corrosion which could potentially cause severe rust damage.

Roller assembly with a Rhino Lining type material.

Up close picture of the Rhino Lining material used to prevent damage to the metal frame.

Here is our finished product after many man hours and countless cans of paint. All that is left is a test run so we can adjust the tension on the belt and get the unit dialed in so we can put it back in service.

Finished product