Welcome to my blog!
It is my intention to give the readers a better understanding of what we do to maintain The Farms Country Club's 18 hole championship golf course and grounds.


Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Life Star Helicopter Shows Up For MidState Medical Center Benefit

We hosted a benefit tournament for MidState Medical Center yesterday. Part of the extravaganza was a visit by a Life Star helicopter.
Life Star is a critical care helicopter service which responds to and provides air transport for a variety of patients who require care at a tertiary care facility.
Enjoy the video...


Monday, July 20, 2015

Testing New Herbicide (Weed Killer)... Tenacity by Syngenta

You may notice some grassy weeds, like crabgrass, turning white in our test areas near number one tee, nine hill and between eighteen cart path and hole sixteen. This niche product has the ability to work both pre and post emergent on undesirable grassy weeds and some broadleaf weeds too. One of the pluses is its ability to be used in newly seeded areas without injuring juvenile seedlings. An application in which other crabgrass preventatives fall short.
Tenacity inhibits a plant enzyme called HPPD that is essential to photosynthesis and prevents formation of carotenoids in susceptible plant species. Without carotenoids, light energy and by-products of photosynthesis will destroy chlorophyll (the green color in leaves) and cell membranes. This results in the bleaching of leaves followed by the death of the plant.




Thursday, July 16, 2015

Golf Course Update! Dollar Spot & Irrigation Fire?

It was a productive day yesterday as we were able to finish some of our project work.
That said...
We began the day seeing many rough areas heavily infected with Dollar Spot disease. The oppressive humidity and other environmental conditions were perfect for this disease to attack. While unsightly, the turfgrass will recover. The weather change last night was enough to stop it from spreading. If we have another outbreak, we will apply plant protectants around the greens.

The "cotton like" substance is called Mycelium.
It is the vegetative part of the fungus.
Adding to the surprise attack on the turf, we had a fire in one of our irrigation satellites. A short in the wiring was the culprit. We have a new satellite on the way. In the mean time, we will need to water the stations by turning the heads on manually using a flag key. The twenty-five sprinklers are in the first 100 yards of eighteen fairway and eighteen tee.

Never say you've seen it all!
Flag key is inserted in top of sprinkler for manual operation.

Flag key.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Tree & Brush Work Continues on Course!

Selective pruning and brush removal continues around the course. High priority "in-play" trees are having their lower limbs pruned. We are also working on thinning undesirable trees, raising low branches and clearing brush between holes ten and eleven.

Linden tree on left side of hole #7

Maple trees on left side of #9

Area between #10 & #11 in progress

Getting there!


Thursday, July 9, 2015

Project Update On Wooded Area Between Holes #12, #13, #14 & #15

We keep making progress! While there is still selective pruning and cleanup to accomplish, it is really starting to take shape. Not only are we improving aesthetics, but we also improve speed of play and create more air flow on surrounding turfgrass.





Saturday, July 4, 2015

Busiest Day Of Year Is A Great Day To Start Project!

What do you do when you have a Junior shotgun on the back nine at 8 am and tee times solid off #1 from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm? You start a project where the staff will be out of the way and be most productive!
I've been wanting to attack the brush, low limbs and selectively remove undesirable trees in the interior grove of trees between holes #12, #13, #14 and #15. It not only improves the aesthetics of the area, but allows the large specimen hardwoods to thrive and be show-cased. We will better be able to keep the area clean and reduce the amount of hand labor required to maintain.
We got a good jump on the project and will continue over the next few days until completed.