Monday, October 26, 2009

Tuesday was our first field trip with Kristen Mull's Environmental Science class from Oregon City High School. Our topic of discussion was biodiversity and golf courses. This was a great opportunity to share the benefits of the golf course to the surrounding community and the wildlife. We are planning three more field trips this fall and will be doing some water and soil testing.

So far the high school is very excited about the opportunity to explore ecosystems and do outdoor lab experiments so close to the school. The possibilities are endless from what we are doing now with water testing to having the kids propagate native plants and actually have them plant them back out on the course after they have grown in their green house.

Greens
This was a good week for the greens as far as growth goes. I am real pleased where they are right now. Weather permitting we will apply a light topdress next week.
We are still experiencing some anthracnose on sixteen. We were hoping it would disappear after we aerified but it is lingering here for some reason. Anthracnose can be a difficult disease to control on Poa once you get it. At this point we will continue to treat it to keep it a bay the best we can. The key next year will be to treat early and prevent it from surfacing. Now that we are buffering our spray mixture we should see far more efficacy from our treatments.

Tees and Fairways
Dollar spot is lingering on this fall. I would have expected it to slow down once the daytime temps started dropping. We are seeing spots on the fairways as well as the tee boxes.
The tees have reached the threshold now where they are mostly Poa annua and we will need to put them on a treatment program. We have outlined a treatment program in the 2010 budget to prevent mainly fusarium patch.

Projects

Carl has wrapped the barley straw bales and we will be putting them in the ponds this week. I am sure they will float so be prepared to answer questions. The answer is that as the barley straw decomposes it gives off an enzyme that will help maintain pond clarity. 
We have put the rails on the new trailer and will be taking the cans to the store later this week. Bob says we have somewhere around 30 bags that have accumulated since we lost the old trailer.

Winner electric installed the new light over the man door at the cart barn. Sig says it is so much better now he can even see once he gets inside the door.







Local News
This fall has been interesting for a few courses in the Northwest. As you know many courses chose to aerate early September and a typical practice is to increase the fertility rates to allow the greens to heal quickly. If temperatures and the humidity are just right it can create the perfect environment for pythium blight. Last month some courses experienced the "Perfect Storm". Temperatures were 94 to 95 degrees with the humidity around 89%. Consequently they are now sodding large areas of their greens and have many of their greens on temporaries. This can happen to anyone and is truly a catastrophic disease. Portland Golf Club here locally and Glendale Country Club in Seattle were two that I know and both supers are good friends. My heart goes out to each of them. I am confident with their abilities and expertise they will have their courses playable in no time. If by any chance anyone hears that the superintendents are to blame, please stand up for them and explain that this is something that can happen to the best of 'em.  It just happened to two of the nicest country clubs around.