Tip for keeping cups clean while spraying.........

I picked up this tip online a while back and just thought i would pass it on. Simple to make with a extra quick coupler cover.You just have to make a handle, I used a piece of a common wire.

 You also want to grind down the outside edge of the top so that it fits flush in the hole.

 After spraying green..

Simple, Lift out and rinse off lid with your clean water reservoir on your sprayer or wipe off with towel.

Patch Diseases ...........

Large Patch (Zoysia Patch) on our collars. I noticed some small areas the end of last year and made a fungicide application.

 These spots should recover as temperatures rise and the zoysia starts actively growing. I will apply a Strobi fungicide in fall to help prevent this next year.

Yellow Patch (Cool Season Brown Patch) on the greens.

This disease is superficial. These spots were on #17 green.
P.S. My first fungicide application went out March 22 (Propiconazole and Mefenoxam)

Pre-emerging Greens.........

Going out with half rate of this product. This product is great for goose/crab but has a reputation for sometimes causing bentgrass to thin out in the summer. This is because of over lapping when spreading at full rate, which would cause some areas to receive twice the label rate.

To help control my spreading overlap i used rope stakes to mark my distances. I used the mower stripes which are spaced pretty close to 9' apart. the mowers are 60" wide so two stripes is 9' counting the over laps.

The spreader has a throw of 9' which works out pretty well with this process. I just use rope stakes to mark one side of green so I know what set of stripes I'm on.

1st mowing of fairways 2012....

 Today was a great day to mow fairways. A nice heavy dew helped in guiding me on some of the areas where the bermudagrass hasn't come out of dormancy.

 Again this year we will be trying to achieve a better fairway playing surface thru aerating and fertilizing. I hope we see some of the benefits of last falls lime application.

Our fairway mowing heights for this season will be .550".

12 days after aerification........

It has been 12 days since we aerified greens. The 13-2-13 Ammonium Sulfate fertilizer we put out has really helped to speed up recovery, along with the temperature reaching 80*F.

Our first cut was Friday. We raised the height of cut slightly to reduce the pick-up of sand. We hope to have the greens back to our normal heights next week.  

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Anyone see the sign on #3.........

What sign.........you mean the carts on path sign.

Aerification is over for now........

All went well with  our early spring aerification. we pulled 5/8 cores on 2"x2" spacing.

We pushed off and shoveled up 20 loads of cores.

We topdressed with a Toro 2300 tow behind unit with the gate set at 2.5"

 We ended up using 2 loads of sand per green.

  

A couple of products I put on the greens this aerification to help build up the soils.

Our next Aerification is scheduled for sometime in May. 

It"s everyones favorite time of year!!!!!

 That's right it's every golfers favorite time of year. Time to punch holes in our putting greens........

 Monday and Tuesday we will begin our  greens aerification process.

If Mother Nature continues to keep giving us these nice sunny days, our healing time may be faster than we expect.

Tree removal on #9

A before and after photo from the green. This green has spent all winter hiding in the shadows of the trees. We were able to clear a lot of trees on the southeast corner of the green. This will help the green to receive more sun while the sun is still on a low path.
 These efforts should help in the recovery of this problematic green.The last picture shows the summer and winter solstice.