Week of May 1st
- matthewbehl
- May 5, 2023
- 3 min read
Updated: May 5, 2023
Since our last post Ipswich has received 4.1 inches of rainfall. While this rainfall will be good for our irrigation pond the total amounts were more than expected and thus caused us some issues this last week with our planned agronomic practices. The course was closed Tuesday and Wednesday for both green and fairway aerations. The ICC agronomy team completed green aeration and cleanup in house with fairway aeration being done by Sportscape Unlimited. The original plan was to use hollow tines to core aerate the fairways roughly four at a time and cleanup the cores before moving on to the next batch of fairways. However, heavy rainfall began sooner and lasted longer than expected. This weather resulted in us deciding to switch from hollow tines in favor of solid tines to limit the mess of core cleanup. As a result the 1st-3rd fairways were core aerated with the remaining fairways all being done with solid tines.
Sportscape also deep tined our greens using a Verti-Drain which punches a 1/2 inch tine roughly nine inches into the green. This reduces soil compaction, helps with surface drainage through the thatch layer, and allows for gas exchange into the root zone at a deeper depth then standard aeration practices allow. After this process the ICC agronomy team aerated the greens using a 1/4 inch hollow tine. The rain prevented us from topdressing the greens, but this will be done Monday. Soil testing will be done in the next few weeks in order to plan future aeration and topdressing needs. Below are some picture of greens aeration.
Here's the Verti-Drain in action:
Work was continued on the right side of the 12th hole where brush was previously cut back. The crew was able to push back the years of accumulated pine needles and leaves a significant amount. This will increase golfers ability to locate and play their ball and will allow for future work aimed at encouraging turf growth.
Country Golf is also once again on ICC property to complete a number of projects. In case you don't remember Country Golf has previously rebuilt our fairway bunkers and rebuilt the 9th white tee and 16th forward tee. This week they started the process of rebuilding the 4th gold and blue tee and the 7th forward tee. The 7th forward tee will be leveled and the 4th gold and blue tee combined into a single tee. Currently the tees are expected to be sodded sometime early next week. There will then be a period of establishment before they can be utilized once again.
Drainage work along the left edge of the cart path heading down to the 3rd green is also underway in order to redirect water coming from adjacent homeowner properties. Once this drainage work is completed further loam and seed work will be done on left side of 3 in addition to some paving work to repair the damaged cart path leading down to the 3rd green.
Country Golf will also be doing extensive work to the range field and tee this month. Work will hopefully begin Monday and be completed by June 1st. After the reconstruction process is completed there will be a grow in period before use of the range can be resumed.
Other work completed this week included:
Aerated tees 1-16 with solid tines
Fairway bunker noses mowed and greenside bunker noses started.
Short Game divots filled
Rough mowing has become a constant task
Turtle hatchings:
