A Dry September
- Michael Curtin
- Sep 6, 2024
- 2 min read
It has been a very busy few weeks for the Ipswich agronomy team since our last blog post. As far as summer months go August turned into a relatively easy one in terms of moisture management with frequent rainfall the first half of the month. Unfortunately we are now almost three weeks without significant rainfall here at the ICC. You might have noticed our irrigation pond once again getting lower and lower. With no rain in the forecast we will need to closely manage our water use for the coming weeks. As always with irrigation demands our focus will remain on keeping greens, tees, and approaches in the best condition possible. Moving forward fairways will receive a light nightly irrigation cycle and hand watering of dry spots during the day. Irrigation of rough will be limited to crucial areas and most of our rough heads will be turned off for the foreseeable future. Most of the projects and aerations (such as for tees and approaches) we had planned for the month of September will be on hold as they require an increase in water usage.
Aeration:
By now the greens have healed from aeration and we have once again resumed our regular maintenance practices to them. Overall we are happy with the results of this aeration and the way the greens have responded. In addition to the heavy topdressing greens were also fertilized with additional nutrients such as nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, manganese, and sulfur. These nutrients all play a crucial role in maintaining healthy turf.
Below are some pictures during the process:
Greens a week and half after aeration: These pictures are from August 26th
Cart Traffic:
With irrigation being reduced in the fairways for the foreseeable future obeying entrance and exit stakes is especially important. These stakes allow us to spread the stress from cart traffic around and give areas time to recover. Please exit the fairways at the red/black stakes.
Other Projects:
The rock retaining wall below the 15th purple tee has been sprayed to eliminate the weed and brush growth that had overtaken it. This rock wall is difficult and dangerous to weedwhack due to its steepness so we chose to spray it with a nonselective herbicide.
An area between the 6th white and forward tee was aerated, composted, and seeded last week. This section of turf often times struggles during the summer and we often see turf loss here. We have seeded this area with fescue/rye seed and will be seeing how this area does as a potential new small natural area.
Sometime towards the end of September or early October we hope to perform a micro core aeration to the greens. We have done this numerous times in the past and there is little to no impact on play from this practice.
Wildlife:
A Egret hunting: