1. No March Aerification: Once the course is closed and before the No-Till Renovation we will do an aggressive aerification. Therefore, we eliminated the spring aerification to promote play and create a better member experience.
2. Limited inputs of fertilizer: The spring fertilizer application was eliminated; normally this would strengthen the greens for the summer heat and stress. Since, we are killing the greens for the No-Till Renovation this was not a necessary application. Also, limiting the amount of fertilizer will greatly increase ball roll and speed.
3. Limited/No inputs of fungicide: We will treat for insects and disease on a curative basis only. The fumigation process will eliminate any/all pests; we have eliminated our preventative spring fungicide/insecticide applications.
4. Reduced PGR applications: Our spring fertilizer application coupled with the cool weather the greens are usually growing and glowing this time of year. We use Plant Growth Regulators, to reduce the vertical growth of the grass and increase the lateral growth. These PGR’s help us maintain speed and drive the energy of the plant to the roots. Since we have limited our fertilizer inputs to the greens they are not growing as aggressively and therefore we eliminated our PGR applications. However, we have seen a downside, the PGR we use (Cutless) also helps control Poa. We have seen an increase in the Poa populations since removing Cutless from our plans. The Poa is an awful eyesore and we made the decision to reintroduce the PGR program until the conversion. This will help us control the Poa until we spray the greens out with Roundup on June 10th.
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