Continued Summer Heat!

Good Morning everyone, Happy 4th of July!  I'm sure we are all aware of the weather we're experiencing, quite out of the norm.  Looking at our weather station, we are now on our 9th straight day of 90 degrees, with 5 of those days above 95.  A lot of things are going on with the course and turf health.  For starters we are in a drought.  The amount of water we lose in a day through evaporation is well above what we can even apply through irrigation, this has been the case all spring.  The difference between rain received and evaporation is over 8" and our irrigation does not make up that difference.  We then get to a situation like right now with overwhelming heat and humidity.  The last thing we want or need to do is apply a great amount of water.  Wet or saturated conditions will only bring other complications in play such as disease or "boiling" roots. 

I thought last week was going to be a challenge, guess I was premature.  Today we are going on the defensive.  This is the exact situation that I wasn't hoping to have with the new greens.  This intense heat is very stressful for mature greens, let alone greens that are in their 1st year.  For the meantime we are backing off, or I should say backing up.  I know today we have the Men's Chapman and I always want the golf course to be in the best possible condition.  Today is not one of those days considering the age of our greens, the forecast at hand, and the traffic they'll receive.  This morning we will be mowing NOTHING.  Greens will be slower!  When we mow we remove leaf tissue which helps the plant "transpire" or cool itself.  In these times that little bit of leaf tissue is very important.  All that will be taking place today is rolling the greens with the greens mowers, again no cutting will take place.  This may be the case for the next few days as today is forecasted in the upper 90's almost 100 as is the same for Thursday and Friday.  I can only hope the extended forecast holds true, cooler temps with some natural moisture.  The real battle now isn't really the heat during the day, but the high temperatures in the evening.  The plant never really has the ablity to rejuvinate itself after a long hot day.  We have done light and frequent water cycles to cool the surface and plant down to help it along but again the upper 70's and high humidity at night keep the plant stressed.  We've begun to see some stress on greens.  Our crew is constantly scouting the course and address these areas and will continue to do so over these stressful days. 

I'm sure some may think that the greens regrassing was supposed to eliminate these situations.  We'll it was, but not too often do we experience 9 and what could end up 11 straight days above 90 degrees.  These temperatures are more for the southern portion of the United States where bermuda grass is the turf of choice.  Normally we receive a few days but then get the cool down, I think this whole season has been out of the norm.  Just look and since May 1 we've had 17 days above 90 here at BCC, that is the furthest from normal.  So needless to say for that our greens have held up tremendously.  As things cool down we'll get back to our normal schedule and maintenance tasks, but this isn't the time to try and be a hero.

One last thing considering the rough.  I just spoke to my crew before the headed out to prep the course and requested of them to keep carts in the fairways and on the carts paths around greens and tees.  A great deal of our rough has now gone into protection mode, dormant.  It will stay this way till we get some rain and some cooler temps.  In the mean time constant traffic will only beat it to submission and it will not come back, making for a lot of dead turf and a lot of seeding.  So please keep the carts in the fairways as much as possible and use the cart paths!  If this weather keeps up we may actually have to pull carts cause it's too dry.  Sure that's the first time you've heard that one.

Thanks again, for all your support and understanding.  I know the last two years were a struggl and this year has started off so great, and then to get into these extremes.  We are doing all we can to stay on top of things and prepare not only for the day at hand but the days to come.  If you see some guys out there pull hose or anyone on the crew a wave or a thank you goes a long ways.  I know they are pretty exhausted but they keep showing up and doing a great job.