Down and Out

My nearly ten year old Gateway PC finally gave up the ghost.  This is the reason you haven't seen a fresh post from me for a while.

This old girl served to store pictures, budgets, weather data from our weather station among other things I've taken for granted.  She served as my weather radar and speaking of weather, she'd been struck by lightning and survived (can't say the serial port did though.)  I've replaced the Hard drive once and this time around that option wasn't practical.  Loosing that first hard drive taught me a valuable lesson to always back up your data.  Until then I had always had good luck in recovering data from failed drives.  When I lost five years of data, photo's I likened it to losing a good friend to death I was never going to see again.

Now the difficult task of finding and restoring files to my new PC has begun.  When that is complete, I will be up and blogging once again with course updates.

Happy Turkey Day everyone.

Mk

Fall is falling; Part two.

This is a photo essay of what we do each and every fall in keeping your golf course playable.  Leaf removal is the second most machine and labor intensive activity we perform each season, second only to fairway aerification clean-up.  Typically our leaf removal tasks begins on or near the 10th of October.  This year is was a week earlier.  Once the leaves start falling it takes approximately 5-6 weeks before it doesn't pay to continue.  We'll get those leaves next spring when we get back out onto your course.

Your course  is easily the "messiest" course I've ever worked on!

Bunkers require extensive hand work when removing leaves.

Tractor blowers are used to move leaves unto rough or back into the woods.

Smaller blowers are used to clean both green and tee surfaces.

Some blowers allow greater flexibility than others.

We've been raking and sweeping leaves with this sweeper for 25 years and it is still the best sweeper we own.

This sweeper offers large capacity but isn't easily maneuvered in the woods.



Off with another load.  What do we do with all the leaves?



They are hauled to an area where they are composted.

 

Sometime the dust is my first clue where to find the guys!



Since the ban on open air burning, leaves are mulched and left in place.

Larger areas are mulched with this bad boy.

An operators view of just one row of leaves to be mulched.

This is done for you the golfer in order that you can enjoy the beautiful fall colors and play the game you love without losing too many golf balls in the process.

Mk

Snow Mold Application Alert

October 12, 2010


The golf course will be closed until 12 noon on Monday October 18th, 2010 for the first of two scheduled snow mold applications for greens tees and fairway turfs WEATHER PERMITTING.

The first application is considered a vaccine that is active within the cell walls and is applied when the plant is growing. The second application is a protective coating that is applied after the plant stops growing for the year.

Mk

"Spooky!"

Some funky mushroom like looking “gourds” popped up on the clubhouse lawn after the recent floodwaters receded.

 

Actually the pumpkins came from the Giant Pumpkin Festival in Nekoosa courtesy of Bull’s Eyes Equipment Manager Tim Johnson. Tim with the help of his wife and others were founding members of the festival that draws contestants from all over the state.

Tim planted and grew four individual plants here at the country club. He moved “the great pumpkin patch” here after a soil born disease pathogen decimated his plantings last year. From those four plants he selected eight pumpkins to display at this years event with the largest weighing in at 631 pounds with a circumference of 135 inches. He estimates that the vines produced nearly 5000 pounds of pumpkins or 2.5 tons. That’s a lot of pie.

Artists carve ghoulish faces into the pumpkins that are entered into contests and judged. Never did hear if one of those displayed won any ribbons or not.

Hope you enjoyed our little display while they last.

Mk

Fall is falling!

With the passing of September we noted what I feel an earlier leaf fall than normal. The moderately strong northwest winds yesterday, things began to let loose in full force.

Generally we anticipate our foliage to peak color around the first of October and leaf fall in full force around the 10th of the month. Was it the earlier than normal start to the year that advanced the growth cycle or was it the near record levels of rainfall we received since the 2nd of June?

The pine trees are much more yellow than in years past, heavy with second and third year Needles ready to fall.

I’ve also noted the heaviest Oak acorn nut litter that I can ever remember on the course. Tee boxes cart paths just covered. At times you have to watch your step because they seam like marbles under foot.

Editorial; “Trees are weeds!” There will be portions of the course that will not see sunlight until next spring. Soils in the shade will stay excessively moist promoting diseases like snow mold to take hold.

Is this a signal of an early winter? The Farmers Almanac predicts a warm wet winter. As I remember they were way wrong last winter. Time will tell.  (Is that a mean reminder or what? ;o)

Mk

Course Closed!

Water, water everywhere! Break out the webbed feet everyone.


I thought I would share with you some course photos of your flooded golf course.



You can see for yourself why the course was closed. Tri City was closed as well due to standing water on fairways.

I was informed the Wisconsin River Valley Improvement Authority called Tim’s wife alerting her to inform the dam operators that they will be releasing pent up water upstream and to expect a flow rate of fifty thousand cubic feet per minute. At that rate the water should be 2 to 3 feet OVER the flash planks on the Centrallia dam. With this rain and more coming I think we’ve gone from “near record” to record rainfall levels for the year.

Mk

Nature talks

I always bench mark the seasons by plant growth and color. Trees are always a first indicator, but grass plants tell a story to. Older Bentgrass varieties change color (Purple) when nighttime temperatures fall into the forties. Early last week, just past Labor Day, I noticed that our putting greens were not growing as actively as they were just a week before.

Greens mower operators were now dumping their buckets once per nine holes of cut. During the warm humid “corn growing” weather in July and August of this past year and with all the precipitation we received, our mower operators had to dump every other green or they would find excessive clipping residue left for our clean up lap cut. It was during that time as well that our Plant Growth Regulators were lasting but five days; not the two weeks we were budgeted for.

It is common knowledge that shorter days coupled with cooler nights trigger slower growth but I had a nagging question in my mind was it because they simply run out of steam due to a lack of fertility? Plant growth dictates when we should stop aerification knowing that the holes will no longer fully heal in this fall. Plant growth also tells us when supplemental fertilization will have limited negative impact on putting green speeds yet provides the plant with ample time to preload carbohydrates for winter survival. With changes in scientific study detecting when the plant absorbs and utilizes plant nutrients we will use the lack of plant growth to fertilize a full month before our normal "Late Season" application which is timed to the second killing frost. We always listen to Mother Nature.

Mk