April Showers?

March has ended like a lion on an eight day cold spell that has sent the bermuda into retreat.  What looked promising three weeks ago for early green up has eroded into just being a little ahead of normal.  You may notice that some of the bermuda leaves have turned a purplish color in response to the cold and wet weather.  Hopefully there will be some sunny days in the next couple of weeks with not so cold nights that will allow the turf to at least come completely out of dormancy.  When the weather is right, it will be fertilized with a fast acting nitrogen source to further speed the recovery from winter.

February and March gave us abundant moisture and now we enter the two wettest months of the year.  It is a change from the past couple of years but does add complications to bringing the course up to speed.  Already it kept us from making a dormant weed control application to bermuda and zoysia and continues to keep us from making an alternate application.  Gazing into the crystal weather ball shows that application may get made this coming week around the tees and bunkers where the broadleaf weeds are the thickest.  The weather has certainly played havoc with the bunkers and staff is about to get all of them back in shape for the impending storms headed our way on Monday.  New sand has arrived and as our staff grows to full strength, it will be added where necessary.

Aeration of greens is done but the process is not finished.  Once again the weather slowed us down.  That coupled with the fact that staff is short, caused a change in the process to occur.  We concentrated on the aeration and the cleanup of cores pulled and then worked at brushing the material that fell off the cores back into the holes.  No new topdressing has been added yet leaving many holes unfilled.  Topdressing will be added this week and worked in.  Doing it this way actually may work better as we do not have equipment that does a good job of incorporating alot of material at one time (hence why we wanted to demo the Sweep N Fill machine).  Separating the topdressing from the aeration will allow our equipment to better incorporate the topdressing.  It may slow the healing process slightly but the weather has already slowed the whole operation down with the rain and lack of sun last week.  Another distressing factor was the malfunction of the irrigation system that inexpliciably ran on #16 green when it was covered with cores delaying the cleaning by a full day.

April is a busy month with not only bringing the course back but readying the outdoor tennis courts for usuage and training the new staff members that have been hired.  In addition a new work schedule is being implemented and the bugs have to be worked out of it.  Am I hoping for a dry April?  No, but normal would suit me just fine.  Anyway, the challenges are before us and now it is time to get cracking and produce.  See you in the sun on the course.