Landscape 8 tee and 7 green area complete

The staff finished installing the plant material this morning. A much better look in my humble opinion, I can't wait until the Azalea's and Rhododendron's bloom in the spring. Then the Red Maples will have awesome red foliage next fall. The surrounding area has been seeded with Tall Fescue and will require some patience as it grows in. We also have some Miscanthis Grass and European Viburnum's planted along the creek to add some definition. Oh I almost forgot, the most important part, the MiniVerde is loving the sunshine!!

Agronomy Department and Course Weekly Update

December 19, 2013

I have just a few quick bullet points this week:

The plant material (trees and shrubs) which will be used to finish the landscape renovations has finally arrived, so you will see our staff installing plants over the next couple of weeks on holes 7, 8, 15 and 16.  I am excited to see the finished product.

This week finally provided a break in the rain and we were able to finish spraying our Pre/Post Emergent Herbicide. This application has taken almost 4 weeks to complete due to the rain, it should have only taken 5 days, very frustrating.

We will also be repainting the gray tee markers as the color we used this summer looks white when it is in the sun and we prefer a gray tone. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at kmacdonald@valleycrest.com and for more information follow us on Twitter @stivescc_vcsup and the Blog: http://vcgmstivescountryclub.blogspot.com/

See y’all on the course,

Kyle Macdonald, GCS, Class A

Agronomy Department and Course Weekly Update

December 12, 2013

Nine days in a row of rain to start off December!  The course was soaked with 3.85 inches of rain over that nine day window.  Between washed out bunkers, wet fairways and weeds germinating, I am ready for some dry days to attack course maintenance.

The maintenance staff was able to spray the Clubhouse, Tennis facility and parking lots turf for weeds on Tuesday and Wednesday.  We are starting to bulk spray the course on Thursday on the holes that are dry enough to ride.  The staff was also back pack spraying in areas that are too wet and good deal of weed break through.  Once the weeds are sprayed it will still take time for the herbicide to completely kill off the weeds, since these cold temperatures affect speed with which the plant metabolizes the herbicide.

With the high amount of rainfall, the greens were starting to hold water and puddle, despite applying a wetting agent and using the SubAir.  So, on Tuesday and Wednesday we used needle tines to open up small holes to allow water to infiltrate into the canopy. We rolled the greens immediately afterwards and saw no disruption to ball roll.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at kmacdonald@valleycrest.com and for more information follow us on Twitter @stivescc_vcsup and the Blog: http://vcgmstivescountryclub.blogspot.com/

See y’all on the course,

Kyle Macdonald, GCS, Class A

RAIN!!

This is the 8th consecutive day with rain at the club. Unfortunately, we are not able to spray the weeds that are emerging in the Fairways and Roughs. As soon as we get at dry day, the maintenance staff will be out in full weed spraying force. The two reasons we can't spray now is because the ground is too wet to get a sprayer out without damaging the turf and we can not treat weeds with Post Emergent herbicide if it is raining because it will wash the herbicide off the leaf blade. If the forecast holds we will be spraying Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Kyle

Agronomy Department and Course Weekly Update

December 5, 2013

I can’t believe it is December already, it seems like yesterday the Club voted to convert to MiniVerde greens.

It has been another rainy week on the course. We have not been able to finish spraying our PreEmergent tank due to the rain.  No worries, we have plenty of time to finish. We have been testing different paint/pigments to use on the greens once they go completely dormant.  We have used the Nursery Green as our trial green testing 4-5 products and it is beginning to look like a checkered quilt.  The goal is to paint the greens once they go completely dormant, so if we have a warm winter, there is a possibility we do not paint at all.

I hope everyone is enjoying the new greens; I have been pleasantly surprised how great they are putting for being almost dormant.  It gets us excited in the Agronomy Dept, to focus on attacking the golf course this summer while the greens are running this quick.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at kmacdonald@valleycrest.com and for more information follow us on Twitter @stivescc_vcsup and the Blog: http://vcgmstivescountryclub.blogspot.com/

See y’all on the course,

Kyle Macdonald, GCS, Class A

LATE ADDITION!!

Agronomy Department and Course Weekly Update

November 28, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone gets to enjoy some great food and time with family.

This is quite a week for the weather… Rain all day on Tuesday, Snow flurries and windy on Wednesday and Sub 20 degrees for Thursday morning. The maintenance staff pulled covers on Wednesday morning and will remove them Friday morning before the shotgun. The weather fell right in line with our protocol to pull covers and keep them on for a day.

We have also started one of our PreEmergent Herbicide applications this week. This application not only kills existing weeds in the Bermuda turf, it also prevents new weeds from germinating. We expect to see 80-85% control this season and have Post Emergent Herbicide’s on hand to control any breakthrough. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at kmacdonald@valleycrest.com and for more information follow us on Twitter @stivescc_vcsup and the Blog: http://vcgmstivescountryclub.blogspot.com/

See y’all on the course,

Kyle Macdonald, GCS, Class A