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Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Greens Update


The healing of the greens this spring has been much slower than normal due to the cooler than average spring temperatures.  We increased fertility rates to give them added encouragement, but it is a tall task to get them to grow without consistent, proper soil temperatures.  As you can see in the picture above, they are almost there, just not quite.  We have now gotten the height of cut worked back down to where it was before we aerified and they are at a point where it shouldn't take much more to get them completely filled in.

As in the past couple of years, we had a soil physical properties test performed on a couple of greens to evaluate the effectivenesss of our cultural practices on them.  We were pleased with the results.  The data collected from those two greens is more in line with 7-8 year old greens than the 14 year old greens that they are.  We saw improvements in infiltration, air porosity, organic content in the top 1" of the profile, and root depths, which was very encouraging.  Although improved, we remain in the upper target range of organic matter content in the top 1".  We must continue to control our fertility levels to limit the amount of organic matter that we are producing and  maintain our current aerification and topdressing programs to keep that number going down and the greens healthy.