Sod Restoration Project

Recently, our club has decided to invest in restoring our primary rough to a pure stand of turf-type, tall fescue. Over the life of the club, invasive weeds such as creeping bent, common Bermuda, poa triv and annual bluegrass have become an aesthetic and functional nuisance. Although the herbicide market has introduced many selective herbicides that will kill or suppress these grasses, we have decided to use a total kill/sod replacement strategy. With the timing of our initial start, we are focusing on cool-season eradication; targeting bent grass, annual bluegrass and rough stalk bluegrass.
That being said, we began spraying round-up last Thursday on our first golf hole. To speed up the kill, we added a small rate of Reward to the mix. Below you will see pictures that walks you through the initial steps of our project.

We do ask that our members be aware of the WHITE paint lines and ORANGE marking flags. If you see these areas, please assume that there is newly applied herbicide in those areas. Feel free to treat those areas as ground under repair. Aside from great assistance from our professional staff and caddies, we will post a turf manager near the sites of herbicide application to further communicate which areas to avoid. Thanks for your patience as we make strides to restore our primary rough.

 Our First step is to locate the weeds that we wish to eradicate. From there, we designate our target areas with white paint and orange pin flags. 

Once identified and marked, the targeted areas are sprayed with round-up and dye. The dye is to help our applicator see where he has sprayed, but it is also an indicator for staff and players that an area has been treated with herbicide. 

Once treated with round-up, we wait 5-7 days for the round-up to move throughout the grass plant.

Once we achieve kill, our staff begins sod cutting all of the sprayed areas. 

Once these areas have been sod cut, our staff will use the combination of trailers, shovels, carts and our dingo to scoop up and remove the material. Later this week, 2 trucks of tall fescue will arrive and these areas will be re-sodded. Simultaneously, we have marked and sprayed our next 1/2 acre section and another 2 trucks of sod will arrive a week from today. We will repeat this process throughout the fall. 

Seasonal Venting

This Blog Post courtesy of Robert Andershonis, Assistant Superintendent

While water is an essential building block to all known life, excessive amounts of water becomes prohibitive to growing healthy turfgrass; and we’ve had nothing short of excessive.  To date, during the month of May we’ve measured rainfall at 7.61 inches at Kinloch Golf Club. Golf course greens, specifically the USGA greens constructed at Kinloch, are designed to quickly drain water in the soil, but when there is too much rainfall there simply is nowhere for all of the water to go.

When too much water enters the soil, it begins to fill all available pore space creating waterlogged soil, leaving no available oxygen for both the turf grass roots and beneficial microorganisms in the soil. Just as a plant takes up water through its roots, it also requires oxygen in the soil to respire. Waterlogged soils cause the roots to begin to decay, destroying a plant's energy reserves and ultimately inhibiting its ability to grow deep healthy roots.

So what are we doing about all of this excessive water in our soil? Vent, vent, vent! Just as we aerify in the spring and early fall to promote gas exchanges, seasonal venting is a fundamental tool for us to introduce oxygen into the soil profile. On May 22nd & 23rd we vented greens with a non-invasive 5mm needle tine at a depth of 2.5 inches. By Tuesday morning, after a cut and roll, the holes were barely noticeable and will be fully healed by the end of the week. We will be continuing this practice in the coming weeks while remaining cognizant of play-ability on a daily basis. Hopefully, the weather pattern breaks and the soils will naturally dry and a better water/oxygen balance will occur. Until then, please know that these practices are essential to managing our greens. 

Additional reading about waterlogged soils can be found at: 

https://www.facebook.com/notes/geoponics-earth-chemistries/why-is-oxygen-so-important-in-soils/144176145623816/

2016 Spring Aeration Recap

Four weeks ago to the day, we began our 2016 spring aeration. Although we are really pleased with the recovery, we are still 10 days from being fully healed. The combination of an aggressive process and cool/cold nights has kept the grass from jumping. We could push it a bit with more fertility, but we want the plant to "wake" up on its own and deliver energy where it is best suited. In other words, we want any carb production to be stored or used for rooting. At any rate, the healing process is always slower than we want, but given the circumstances and timing of our aeration, we remain very excited about turf conditions for the balance of the spring and beyond. Outlined below is a recap of our 2016 spring aeration.

Greens 

1. Topdress greens at a rate of 1000#'s of sand per 1000 square feet
2. Deep tine greens on 1.5" centers to a depth of 7" with a 1/2" solid deep tine 
3. Solid tine aerated on a 1.5" center to a depth of 3" with a 5/8" solid tine
4. Core aerated on a 1.5" center to a depth of 2.5" with 1/4" hollow tine
5. Used a sweep and fill drag to brush in sand and break up cores
6. Removed cores from green
7. Rolled greens in 2 directions with DMI Speedrollers
8. Ran sweep and fill in 2 additional directions 
9. Rolled greens another time
10. Dry-jected greens with 30 tons of dried sand
11. Cleaned up sand remnants from dry-ject operation
12. Rolled greens for a 4th time 
13. Applied Potassium, Pro-Mag (Magnesium) and Limestone (Calcium) at respective rates of .75#K/1000, 5#'s/1000 and 10#'s/1000
14. Watered in sand and all products for 20 minutes
15. Allowed greens to sit for 2 days
16. Rolled and mowed one week from the start of the operation. 

*YTD, the greens have recieved .45#'s/N per 1000 square feet through soluable urea and amm. sulfate.*

Tees

1. Vertical mowed the tees at a depth of 3/8" on 1" centers 
2. Topdressed tees at a rate of 1000#'s of sand per 1000 square feet
3. Core aerated the tees on 2" centers to a depth of 3" with a 5/8" coring tine
4. Used sweep and fill to drag the sand and bust up the cores
5. Removed cores 
6. Rolled tees 
7. Applied gypsum at a rate of 15#'s per 1000 square feet 
8. Applied 20-0-8, 150 SGN Fertilizer with Dimension - .25#ai/A 
9. Watered in products and sand
10. Allowed 10 days to pass prior to first mowing 

*During the off-season, the tees were vertically mowed in 2 directions and deep tined 2x.* 

Fairways, Approaches and Intermediates 

1. Topdressed fairways at a rate of 1000#'s of sand per 1000 square feet. (27 truckloads) 
2. Core aerated the fairways on 2" centers to a depth of 3" with a 5/8" coring tine
3. Used sweep and fill to drag the sand and bust up the cores
4. Used two turbine blowers to blow cores towards the center of the fairway. 
5. Removed cores with 2 - Toro Pro-Sweeps and 1 Super 600
6. Re-drug fairways with sweep and fill machines 
7. Applied gypsum at a rate of 15#'s per 1000 square feet 
8. Drug in gypsum with a core buster drag mat 
9. Watered in products and sand. 
10. Allowed 10 days to pass prior to first mowing 

*During the off-season, the fairways were vertically mowed and deep tined 2x.* 

Winter Projects Update - Final Blog Post

Our Winter Projects began in mid-January and as of today (aside from some growing-in and punch list items) we are finished and ready to focus on day to day maintenance. Although our blog will remain active throughout the year (aeration recap next week) our winter project updates will conclude with this post. In this post, I have gone back to previous blogs and dug up some "before" photos and placed them above "finished" photos. We hope you enjoy the tour and thanks to all of our members for having such great patience as we worked through the last two and a half months. 

3rd Tee Complex - Cleared to Grassed 

6th Tee Complex - Dirt to Grass 

9th Fairway - Widened 

11th Tee Complex 

11th Fairway Expansion 

12th Fairway Bunker Placement 

16th Hillside - Re-grassed

18th Stream Restoration 

Winter Projects Update 3-16-2016

Over the past week, the construction crew has wrapped up all of their work on each project site. Chris Kelly and Landscapes Unlimited did a great job throughout the course. Now that the heavy lifting is over, our maintenance crew has been very busy laying sod. We have been laying 2-3 trucks per day for the past 7 days straight. All in all, we are about 95% complete with each of the projects. 

The 6th tee grassed and rolled. 

The 6th tee looking down the fairway. 

The 3rd tee box grassed and rolled. 

The 3rd tee looking down the fairway. 

The 9th fairway has been grassed and rolled. 

We expanded the approach behind the 6th green. 

Creek work on #18 finished and 75% grassed. 

The hill side on #16 is cleaned, graded and ready for grass. 

The completed bunker complex on the 12th hole. We will add sand next week. 

The 12th hole bunker complex from the tee. 

A side view of the 11th hole fairway project. 

We are adding a rock weir/bridge to the cleaned up creek on #11. 

#11 fairway expansion from the tee. We have seeded the bare area in the foreground to fine fescue. 

Looking down the fairway from the new tee on #11. 

Reverse angle of the 9th fairway project. 

Winter Projects Update 3-9-16

With some warm, dry weather, both the construction team and Kinloch's staff have been busy finishing projects and adding turf. Although we have a lot of work still to do, we can see the finish Line!!!

New Bunker Complex on 12 about 50% grassed

Closer view of #12 

New walk bridge/dam being built on #11 

Expanded fairway on #11 is grassed 

View of expanded landing area on #11 

Creek on #11 tee being grassed 

Another view of the fine Fescue on #11 creek 

New back tee on #6 is complete 

Closer view of #6 tee 

#3 tees will be finished soon 

Creek area on #10/18 is cleaned up and ready for grass 

Winter Projects Update 3-3-2016

We are happy to report that sod is going down on many of the projects.  Project areas are getting their final grade and they are rounding out nicely.  

After #3 tee tops were finished we added new lines of Tall and Fine Fescue.  The Fine Fescue will add a nice element of texture.

We continue the same principle here on #6 tee with the Fescue lines.

We have finished laying fairway sod on #9.  The open area you see will be the new intermediate line.

This is the continuation of #10 creek and will channel through #18 fairway.  

We have sodded around #11 tee with Tall Fescue, and will have Fine Fescue sweeping around.  The Bentgrass Tee top will be coming soon.

We have started laying sod on #11 fairway, and we will finish the area off with intermediate and Fescues.

This will be an extension of #11 fairway and give the creek a finished look.

We have started sodding the left side of #12 fairway, and will shortly be finishing the right side.