Greens condition and PG detail ...

Looks like a nice weekend ahead! The greens are about as good as I could hope for right now. We implemented a program last fall that seems to have really paid dividends. They looked good all winter and look terrific right now. Pics from yesterday ( 3/28 ) ... 

We put out the freshly painted putting green area signs and accessories this week. We also painted the flagpole, hoping to spruce things up a bit. 

Was a busy week! We've started mowing rough today. Concentrating on the areas directly around greens and fairways, mainly as another way to clean up from winter. We also mowed tees, greens, collars, and approaches. Traps are being spun again today in preparation for the weekend. Hopefully the rain holds off and we get two nice days. Enjoy your weekend and thanks for playing a Cranbury!

Tees ...

Tees probably ended 2018 as our biggest turf issue. They have three pretty big strikes going against them, especially in years like 2018: shade, poor drainage, and lack of size. Throw in the fact that a lot of them have trees growing in close proximity and they are a constant struggle. 

We have shade issues to some degree on the majority of the tees but three, six, eight, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen are the biggest problems. The shade really limits the ability of the turf to fill in and recover. Even if we can get decent turf stands established on them in the spring, they slowly decline all season. The fact that many of them have trees growing in close proximity doesn't help either, think three, six, twelve, and fifteen white. Both the turf and the trees are fighting for the same nutrients and moisture. 

The tees also tend to drain poorly. In 2018, this undoubtedly was our biggest issue. It was very evident on number one at the end of last season. The front half, which is a bit higher and dryer, was still in good shape, while the back half where the water tended to end up was thinned out quite a bit. 

As if those issues weren't enough, the tees are very small. We only spray two acres. Which means actually turf area is probably closer to one and three quarters. On an eighteen hole golf course with six par threes, that is not a lot. In fact, it is not nearly enough. 

To sum it up we are trying to grow turf that is competing for nutrients and moisture in a difficult growing environment while having to withstand and recover from traffic. The odds are not in our favor. 

So what do we do to help our odds? Well for starters we try to limit traffic in the late fall, winter, and early spring. In the winter of 2015 and 2016, we didn't use the tees at all. You'll remember that we were asking people to tee off from in front of the actual boxes or from the yellow boxes where it made sense. The last two winters we either used one set of markers on the very fronts of the white boxes or had no markers at all, allowing you to pick your teeing areas and spread the traffic out instead of wasting teeing areas before the season. This winter we had to deviate from those plans a bit and went with two sets of tees but tried to keep the traffic confined to the front area of the boxes. 

We have also been aggressively aerating and seeding. Last spring we did an early solid tine and seeding of the tees followed up with a core aerification and seeding a month or so later. We will employ the same strategy this year. 

And last but not least, if you played here the last three winters, you've probably noticed the turf covers on the worst of the tees. This year we covered the box shared by two and eighteen as well as twelve, fourteen, and sixteen. The covers delay dormancy, protect the turf from the cold winter temps, and hopefully help "start up" the turf earlier in the spring while the traffic is limited. All in an attempt to extend the time the turf has to grow, recover, strengthen and fill in. 

Yesterday we picked up the covers and mowed the tees for the first time. We also started the solid tine aerification and seeding process. 

Pics below show fourteen tee covered as well as sixteen tee post cut. If you look closely at the picture of sixteen tee you can see faint lines of turf. Those are last years aerification holes filled with turf from seeding. 

Spraying season 2019 ...

Time flies huh? Hard to believe we are spraying already. That being said, despite the lack of snow this winter, we are about two weeks behind last year weatherwise ( based on growing degree days ). Based on my eyes, I noted a noticeable green up on February 28th last year. I didn't notice the same green up until March 15th this year. If you remember we had a very warm February last year. We aerified tees in February and made our first spray on March 6th. And then it seemingly snowed all of March! Like I said last time, this job is always interesting to say the least.

The spray yesterday was to minimize and suppress the seedheads that the poa will try to develop in the coming weeks. Doing so will improve the putting surface and save the plant some energy and resources. Unless you have snow mold issues coming out of winter this spray generally kicks off the spraying season for those of us managing poa greens in the northeast and many other areas of the country.

I've walked on most the greens the last two days and we seem to be disease free. We also seemed to made it through the cold months with very little winter damage. The swale in the back of #1 green may have some small spots of winter kill, but otherwise we are in good shape.

Some pics attached of before and after as well as a sprayed green ... oh hey, it is raining again!

Welcome ...

Welcome to the Cranbury Golf Club Agronomy Department blog. It is odd, writing this knowing I'm speaking to no one. Will that change? Who knows. But I've been giving this some thought for some time now. I think we do an interesting job as golf course superintendents. It also seems that quite a number of golfers find what we do out on the course interesting also. So, I thought this may be a fun way to share what we are doing from our end as well as give those of you who are interested in golf course maintenance some additional insight. I think I'm pretty available on property ( I mean I do live here? ), especially to those who play here often, but this will serve as an additional avenue to get information out about the whys, hows and whens of the CGCAD and maybe, if you ask nicely ( lol ), answer some questions. This will also act as some additional documentation for myself moving forward. Assuming I continue to do it. 

So what has happened so far in 2019? Well, it has rained a little. Luckily it has only rained for two months so far in 2019 .... Yeah. It has been wet. We spent the winter repainting course accessories. Repairing some equipment. We gave the shop a bit of a facelift. When the weather did cooperate, we did some tree work as well as continued the drainage project on #3. I'll touch on those more going forward. 

It is March 18th and we are mowing greens for the first time today. We set the mower to the same height that we finished 2018 at. Through the first few greens, we are not cutting much, which was what I suspected just based off of what I've seen out on the course. We haven't had too many of those real warm days to get things moving and growing. But, this mow will act as a light roll and will also "clean up" small areas of growth and smallish debris that we couldn't pick up or blow off. 

We start gaining crew members back this week. So the course should see some additional attention and areas that have been neglected thus far should start to improve. Bunkers being first on the list. The course should get "cleaner" as the next week or two pass by from actual clean up and also from the first few mows. 

I've attached some pictures of two mowed greens as well as one area pre and post mow. One of our most diehard members makes an appearance also ...