Hoping for warmer weather

Still waiting for the warmer weather to arrive. We have had some very nasty days this past week. The cold weather keeps lingering and giving us shots of snow from time to time. This coming week does not look any better.

Despite the weather we must keep on working. The golf course maintenance staff has scheduled a few important tasks to accomplish in the next two weeks. We have scheduled a wall to wall fertilization and an aerification on the greens.

The turfgrass is in much need of a little nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to give it a jump start. The purplish color of the turfgrass is from the lack of phosphorus. After a long winter, the grass plant has used all of its reserves and is in need of some "food" and warmer temperatures to start is growth process.

Once the greens have responded to a fertilizer application, we will aerify with 3/8'' solid tines. The holes will then be filled with the excess sand that remains on the green surfaces. After this aerification, the sandiness of the greens should be lessened. The greens will generally be aerified with a solid tine due to the quickness of recovery. A traditional aerification where a plug or part of the greens profile is extracted would be slow to recover due to the growth habit of the fine fescue.

So the fertilizer application and greens aerification will be our biggest projects the next two weeks. Along with these to projects we will continue with our normal day to day course setup and mowing.