September at Swope

As September ends, so does summer...finally! Aside from a surprise week of 90's, the cooler September weather allows us to focus on other projects and knock off some tasks on the annual to-do list.

In early September, the greens underwent aerification; the process of pulling small cores out of the greens to allow better ventilation and promote new growth. Our current problem greens, Practice, 14, and 10, we went a step further and deep tine aerated the turf along with re-seeding. These greens have and will continue to be our main focus of repair.

  

Deep tining of 14.

In order to prepare for future green problems, fingers crossed, we created a new bent grass nursery. In two days, our crew along with help from our agronomist, tore out the old nursery and completely started over from square one. With some care and a bunch of water, we expect to have a full nursery by next season.

 Nursery, Day 1

One more annual task we tackled was the over-seeding of the entire course. After a busy and dry summer, many areas of the course attract more wear and tear than others. Areas like cart enter/exit paths, rough near cart paths, and our walking paths experience more damage and receive little attention. Our slit-seeder is pulled behind a tractor and creates small furrow and drops seed into the soil. 

Over-seeding of 15 walking path.

Let's hope that cooler weather keeps on coming for October!