Approaching Phase II

Hard to believe that there is only 12 days till we begin Phase II of the greens project!  We continue to get ourselves ready by lining up all materials needed as well as coming up with our attack plan.  A project of such nature can always be planned out on paper but I'm sure as it begins adjustments are gonna need to be made either just by functionality or by weather complications.  Phase II is dealing with the killing of the existing turf and reseeding with the new and improved bentgrass cultivars.  These new bentgrass cultivars are genetically made to fill the voids that previous ones have.  Such voids include: better stress tolerance, more upright growth habit, more aggressive lateral habit to keep Poa out.  All these characteristics will help us create better, more consistent putting surfaces from year to year, month to month, day to day. 

The project begins on August 8th:

• August 8th
• Ryan begins the minor slope adjustments to 9 and 18 green
• These slope adjustments are being made to aid in surface drainage
• We all know what happened two winters ago with damage.  These adjustments will help move water off the putting surface and greatly reduce the chance of heavy ice accumulation.
• BCC Crew begins the greens aerification and prep for fumigation
• Deeptine using our Vertidrain
• We will be using solid tines that are 1/2" in diameter by 6" long
• This process is to help fracture any bound soil under the surface but also create avenues to get sand down in and for the fumigation gas to go through
• Verticutting using our machinery
• We plan on going in 4 different directions
• 1 machine will be set at one depth and go two directions
• 1 machine will be set at a deeper depth and go two directions
• Verticutting helps remove built up thatch in the turf canopy and create room for seed to get down in
• Premier Greens and Turf "Drill n Fill"
• Drill n Fill is the process we've carried out over the last 3 seasons
• This is an aerification method that helps get sand down to an 8" depth
• Aids in drainage but this is also being used as another avenue for gas to get deeper into the substructure
• Here we will utilize our guys to fill the machines with sand as well as cleanup some of the soil they bring to the surface
• Aerification of greens with walking machines
• Following the Drill n Fill we will use our aerification equipment to aerify the greens
• This is just like our normal fall aerification
• We'll use 5/8" hollow tines going at a 2" spacing about 5" deep
• This again is a method to remove thatch from the greens profile and help us incorporate sand into the green
• All these holes also create an area where seed falls into and can germinate from
• Following all these process we will do our sand topdressing
• This is just a process of throwing sand over the green and dragging it in to fill all the holes created by the aerification as well as fill the verticut channels
• Our goal for this day is to get at least 8-9 areas completely ready for fumigation at the end of the day
• August 9th
• Ryan Construction continues with there minor changes and possibly moving on to 1 and 8 green
• Again these changes are to create better surface drainage for the green
• We continue with our Aerification and preparation for the fumigation process
• Hendrix & Dahl arrive (Fumigation Company)
• They plan on arriving mid to late morning
• Will begin setting up for fumigation and have the goal of getting 4-5 areas completely fumigated by the end of the day
• Laying down piping over the greens and approaches
• Covering greens and approaches with tarps
• Injecting the methyl bromide into the covered areas
• August 10th
• Ryan construction will begin wrapping up on their minor changes to those 4 greens
• We wrap up our aerification and prep for the fumigation process
• Hendrix and Dahl put in a long day attempting to get about 8-9 more areas fumigated
• August 11th
• Hendrix and Dahl finish up their fumigation process
• August 12th
• We get back to normal maintenance and get caught back up
• Possibly begin to pull the tarps from the Tuesday fumigated areas
• August 13th
• Pull more tarps from the Tuesday and Wednesday fumigated areas
• August 14th
• Pull the remaining tarps from the Greens and Approaches
• August 15th
• Verticut the areas where the tarps were removed Friday
• Topdress these areas
• August 16th
• Verticut the areas where the tarps were removed on Saturday
• Topdress these areas
• August 17th
• Verticut the areas where the tarps were removed on Sunday
• Topdress these areas
• August 18th
• Beginning seeding
• Try to get half the areas seeded
• August 19th
• Finish seeding

Again, all this looks fine and detailed when written down, but I know we'll hit a few bumps in the road.  Weather can always throw wrenches in the plan so we will be prepared.  My absolute goal is to have all the seed down by no later than August 22nd so that gives us 3 days where we can have some weather complications.  Cross our fingers and hope that all this plan works out and we'll be seeing grass by Labor Day Weekend!