tee and fairway seeding

Here is an update on the progress we are seeing on tees and also what we are doing on the bad spots in our fairways. As noted in the last post, we are doing everything possible to help speed recovery of our course. These steps are starting to show signs that it is working and we continue to work hard at them.

After an area in the fairway is aerified, we go back and top dress the area with a seed and sand mixture. That mix is then brushed into the holes where it will germinate. Seed is also spreed over the area to get worked into the surface when we go over it with the broom.

Here is a spot after we have aerified, top dressed, and brushed in.

In this photo you can see the grass germinating in several of the aerifier holes. We began seeing germination on tees about 12 days after this was done.

You can see here the seed germinating in a larger area than just the aerifier hole. This is what we are after, and are encouraged by what we have seen so far.

Rough work and seeding

This week we have begun cleaning up and seeding the roughs. We are doing this in our ongoing effort to repair any damage from this summer and also to continue what we started last year and introduce newer varieties of grass into our roughs. These newer grasses have better growth habits including drought resistance and color.
What we will do is start lowering down the roughs from 2 1/2" to 2". There will be a little mess at first but we will immediately start over to mulch up any clippings that may be left after the first day. Then we will go out and start slit seeding rough areas again. We lower the height down first so that the seed can get down into the soil better and so that when it begins to germinate it wont get suffocated by the the existing turf canopy. You can view an earlier blog postings from last year showing how the slit seeding works.