A best management practice that has been mentioned before in these course updates is raising the height of cut on our fairways prior to winter. If we neglected to do this prior to the warm season Santa Anna going dormant, we would run the risk of excessive thinning of the fairways from winter golf traffic. Now that spring has arrived and we feel the weather has changed enough, it is time to lower this height of cut and groom out the hybrid bermuda's stems and seed head in the process. We got started on this process this week and should have a first pass completed by next.
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Here we are using a small greens groomer brush against the grain of the Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda standing it up along with its seed stems. |
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Above represents a mowed surface on the left next to an un-mowed and brushed up surface on the right. The mowed surface was what we call "back track mowed" which involves mowing in one direction normally against the grain, then turning around and mowing the same strip in the opposite direction. |
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Here we are "back track mowing". The process of brushing and back track mowing does take some time to get all 30 acres of fairways done and like most cultural practices need to be done when it is dry and the weather so far this spring has been hit and miss. Additionally this process needs to be done when the Hybrid Bermuda is woke up and growing and it is in the process of doing just that. |
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| Unfortunately we were stalled end of this week with the fairway grooming process, next week looks promising. |
Additional Weekly Progress
Along with getting started on the above mentioned fairway grooming, we completed core aeration of the back 9 rough as well as core aeration of our collars. Next week we plan on a full course fertility application as well as finishing the first pass of our fairway grooming process.
