Another Dreary Day

It's been a week since our last post so I figure that I should bring everyone up to date.  The weather remains quite miserable, but I'm sure everyone is noticing that.  Last Friday I witnessed probaby the most dramatic climate change.  In the morning it was mild and humid but at 9:30 the temperature dropped about 10 degrees in 2 minutes along with a thick wall of fog coming in off the lake.  Since that climate change we've been challenged to reach the 50 degrees mark.  Is spring ever going to come?  Since our last post we've been getting more on a routine with mowing.  Rough continues to keep us busy as the bluegrass is enjoying the cool, moist weather along with the fertilizer that was attached to our preemergent crabgrass control.  Each and every day we are out there mowing away trying to keep up. 

Our normal spring weeds, dandelions and clover, are popping up as they also have been enjoying this wet and cool weather.  We've been attacking them one by one but using backpack sprayers and having guys walk throughout the golf course to spray.  This will be an ongoing process as the weather stays cool since this is there preferred type of climate.  Using backpack sprayers gives us the ability to target the weeds directly instead of spraying a massive amount of herbicide throughout the course on areas not needed.

More cultural practices took place this past Monday.  Verticutting, spiking, and topdressing took place on all greens while deeptining and topdressing took place on all tees.  Again these are all methods to mitigate the thatch layer and dilute it with sand.  Such tasks help create better growing environments for the turf as thatch can prevent water, nutrient, and air penetration.  All these tasks on the green help us prepare as well for the upcoming greens project in August where thatch removal will be very important and the more we can get done during the season the smoother the seeding process will go in August.

Other than that we've just been maintaining our spirits through this dreary weather and continue to hope for better stuff to come!