Turf Blog – May 2017

 With Spring now in full swing, we are off to the new golf season of 2017. Unfortunately, the weather hasn’t been as cooperative this year as it has over the past couple of years and we’ve been hit with a significant amount of rain over these first two weeks. Since April 26th to May 14th we’ve had a total of 140mm of rain in the Halifax region. While the drainage system at Brunello is top notch, with these cool day and night time temperatures, the grass plant is not actively growing and therefor not taking up much of the rainfall, meaning the drainage system is doing much of the work.

While the weather maybe a bit sour, it has not stopped maintenance from getting work done. In late April, we were able to verti-cut our fairways, and last week we brought our height of cuts down on the greens, and got our first cuts on all of the roughs. Additionally, we’ve been working around the clubhouse getting much of the landscaping done to the addition to the clubhouse. More work has been done to the practice facility at the back of the driving range, and we planted a few new trees by the tees on hole #5. You will also notice some improvements done along some of the tree lines where more trees and branches have been removed so players can easily look for their balls. Much of the work has been done on holes #1 through #4, and will continue moving forward through the course as the year goes on.

This coming week looks more promising weather wise, so hopefully we see some sun and warmer days.

Johnny Connor
2nd Assistant & Environmental Steward

August 5, 2016 – Turf Blog

We are at the point in summer where we have hit a bit of a heat wave over the past few weeks with high weather pressure and humidity. This is generally when turf diseases start to occur and we have to have our eyes out for the first signs of it so we can apply fungicides to prevent any out breaks.

Typically, in this region we only have a few types of diseases to watch out for, such as dollar spot, fusarium, and brown patch.  Other regions, that get hotter and more humid than here, have even more to contend with and thus have to spray more regularly.

Once we’ve determined that the environment is right for a disease we will go out and spray a fungicide at what they call a “preventive rate”. Essentially this is a low rate that protects the plant from being infected. Should we decide to hold off from spraying it can be a matter of merely a day in which a major outbreak can occur.  We then have to spray at a “curative rate”.  This is typically double to three times the amount of a preventive application would require.

In addition to the heat and humidity, we have been dealing with a disease on our fairways called “Take-All Patch”. This disease normally occurs in newly built golf courses during the first 3-5 years due to high pH levels in the soils. You may notice brown/reddish circular shapes in the fairways, this is Take-All patch. It’s a very manageable disease for us as we spray a combination of fertilizer products and water it in after to help prevent it from spreading. Over time this will be less prevalent as the course matures.   The photo below shows a Take-All Patch from #6 Fairway.

Johnny Connor
2nd Assistant & Environmental Steward

With the start of the season the Turf Care team has been making its transition to getting into our daily routines now that the golfers are back on the course. Much of our staff from last season has returned with a few new faces joining the team. April was a busy month of sodding our 6 new forward tee decks and patching areas in the fairways that never fully grew in last year. We like to do these projects this time of year because we aren’t in the way of golfers and aren’t dodging golf balls while were out there, but also with the cooler temps and dampness it allows the sod to grow in better and requires less attention in terms of water.

In addition to the cooler weather, this also means the grass isn’t really growing very fast due to the low soil temperatures. As a result we may reduce the areas the carts may go on the fairways until the conditions start to change with warmer days and nights. With the Spring we’ve had so far, hopefully we aren’t too far away from that.

I’ve been out numerous times this year spraying liquid fertility to the fairways and greens to help stimulate growth more quickly to help “green up” the place.

Other than the addition of the new forward tee decks, one new change you’ll see is that we are growing in a “fringe” or “collar” around the greens. You’ll notice some red spray paint dots around the greens which marks out where this will be growing in so our greens mowers to cut into the area. Over the next couple weeks this will start to become established and more noticeable. We think it will help with some of the wear and tear our Greens Triplex turning on some of the greens that have sharp slopes on them. Hopefully it also adds to the playability of the course and slows the ball from rolling off the greens. We’d be happy to hear some feedback on this over the year!

We maybe in for a wet week of weather but we certainly could use the rain as the course and the woods were becoming quite dry, and as we’ve seen out West with the fires we don’t want to be in any position that our friends out there are dealing with right now.

See you soon!

Johnny Connor
2nd Assistant & Environmental Steward