Blow out

So far this years blow out has gone smoothly. Today we see the finish line after two long days of running around and making sure all the water is out of the lines. This year we had Jim Vosepka  feild service manager 

of the Rocky Mountain region from Toro and Travis Abitz golf irrigation sales Rocky Mountain region for Toro. To assist us in our blow our procedures. 

The main reason  the representative from Toro are on property  are to  help with  our blow out and see why we are blowing are 780 series heads tops,  especially  during blow out and  spring charge up. When the representative arrived on Monday we walked them through our entire blow our procedure. Both reps were pleased with our plan and the way we execute it. On the end of the second day we were finished with the entire course and Jim and Travis were both impressed with how we handle blow out, we are  the poster child for golf course blow out. So we will see them in the spring for charge up and hopefully we can figure out the problem with the 780 heads.

Blowing out the lower end of the course 

Blowing out entire 27 hole system with 750 CFM compressor at 35-40 PSI

Videos

Check out Pinery's Golf Course Maintenance YouTube channel on the right side of
this blog. We have had the channel for some time but  thought it would be nice to have them all

in one place. We will post more videos as they are taken. Enjoy! 

Soak it down

Over the next few days the golf course will be a little wet!  With blow out of the irrigation system occurring on the 12th of November,  we will not have access to large amounts of water for the course until March 2013 so let it fly. We want to load up the soil profile and southern exposures as best as we can this week.  Only time will tell as the winter months set in if we will have to charge up our frost free system for  winter watering. Not many folks know that watering in winter is just as important as in the summer. Desiccation over the winter especially on southern exposures is extremely hard on turf. We have to do our best to hydrate the crown of the turf plant throughout the winter by irrigation water or snow.  Some of the driest places on earth are the north and south poles where they receive only a trace of precipitation a year!  Most the snow and ice is millions of years old and since it  is all frozen  its not available to plants or animals.

Look at all that water! 

If the polar caps were to melt, which hold over 70% of earths fresh water, 

our oceans would rise global  over 200 Feet!

Good thing we live in the Mile High city.

The Home stretch

Only one week until irrigation blowout.  These last few watering's we do during the day because of the cold nights so we will take advantage and check the pumps and pressures at the station and in the field. We do these testings 2-3 times per year to make sure the entire irrigation system is performing the way it was designed. 

Here is a short video of the pump station in action.

Then and Now

We've come a long way baby!  This first picture was taken back in the early 90's and the second in early 2012. Can you even recognize the first picture?  This is the cart path for #4 green lake and #5 tee lake. These are definitely some scary images appropriated for Halloween.

"Keep moving  forward,  But remember where you've been"

S.J.W.

 

 Now those are some bad cart paths!! 4x4 golf carts?? 

Notice the roof peek on the house for a point of reference.

Current picture spring of 2012 of the same area 

Wow!! 

Holes!!

Tee aerification is finished! If you were wondering we punch the tees with a quad tine setup with a 1/2 inch core tine five inches long. With this tine we punch 70 holes per sq ft or just over 9.5 million holes on three acres of tees. Wow that's a lot of holes!

Contour?

Why do we contour fairways in the late summer into fall?

The main reason is we are saving man hours! Typicality we mow our fairways 3-4 times a week in the peak summer months with a checker board pattern. This type of mowing is very aesthetically pleasing to the eye but it takes 45 to 60 man hours per week to mow this way. In the late summer and into fall we have less crew and contour mowing the fairways only takes 30-40 man hours per week. Since the weather in late summer and fall is cooling down this leaves time to do other maintenance/cultural practices and special  projects on the golf course. If you are wondering, this type of contour mowing does not change the play-ability of the courses  fairways it just have a little different look.

Out like a Lion

Well July came in like a lamb but left like a LION!  On the last day of July we received another monster rain/hail storm. This storm was on the heals of a heavy irrigation cycle on Sunday night then three tenths of rain Monday evening then 1.3 inches of rain Tuesday afternoon  plus pee to marble size hail for just under an hour. The say the least the course is extremely wet. We are not complaining we need the rain. Most of the bunkers washed out again and paths and path edges are a mess, so the cleanup begins.  The heat was also on this July officially from NOAA it was the hottest July on record for Denver since 1872 when records begin. We also had 17 days of 90 or above here at the Pinery.  This summer of 2012 will definitely go  down in the record books for extreme weather events. Below is a short video of the rain. I got caught in the storm on #6 lake bathroom, boy it was really coming down.

 

Round Two....

Well its round two in the severe rain department. Over the last month we have received over 5.5 inches of rain   unfortunately all this moisture fell in a 2-3 hour period. The first storm was back on June 6th where we received 4 inches of rain and the latest's was this last weekend where we received one inch of rain in less than one hour.  To say the least this storm was less severe but it still washed out most of our bunkers. This storm is also days from the start of our Men's member guest the most important tournament of the year.  Bunkers are a no brainier but getting greens quick again is a challenge. So today we are quadruple cutting the greens and double rolling them, weather depending because there is rain in the forecast again today. It just started to rain while I was posting this blog and we received an additional 1/2 inch. Is there more to come we will see. Welcome to monsoon season in Colorado.

Below is a video on rolling a green

Summer Heat Stress

This is a great educational video on some of the heat stress that we have been dealing with on the golf course for the last few weeks.  I hope this educates our members on the problems of  turf heat stress and the actions we have to take on a daily basis in the summer months.

How hot is it?

Its so hot our greens mowers are overheating at  8 am in the morning!  We actually had to pour cold water over the fuel pumps numerous times because the engine was not getting fuel because of vapor lock.  With this type of heat we try to do all our mowing and hard labor before 10am, after ten it is just to hot to operate equipment. This benefit is not only for the turf but the equipment and the operator.  When the weather gets this hot for consecutive days cool season turf types just shut down and go in to a dormant state, conserving water to the crown of the plant (survival mode). We are basically in the same survival mode just keep the turf alive until it cools down and we receive some rain.

This marks the 5th day in a row over 100 degrees in Denver and the 5th record breaking day of heat. Below are some stats on the recent weather. Thankfully we have not seen 105 degrees here at the Pinery but we have been pushing 100 + low humidity and windy since  Friday the 22nd and no rain since the 6th of June.

Denver's record breaking weather
June 22nd    102
June 23rd    104
June 24th     102
June 25th     105
June 26th     105

The 105 degrees is the all time high for Denver and it has only been reached four times since records were kept back in 1873.

The Golden Egg?

Every year new  technology is developed for golf course turf but is there a Golden Egg?  Lots of folks thought that Xeonerate could  be that type of product, could it be that easy.  I don't think so.  Xonerate is one of  the newest chemicals on the market it is primarily used for Poa Annua control or elimination on Golf turf.  This chemical has had  success in turf trials in most of the country.  But of lately story's have arisen of  stress or death to the desired species of turf?  I am still very excited about this new product  for Poa control and I am still going to do my own test trials but I will  tread lightly.  If  there is ever a so called "Golden Egg" product developed for Golf Course Superintendents  what courses are going to be able to afford it?   And what then will set us apart making us individuals?

50 Year Storm?

Well it has almost been two weeks since our historic storm here at the Pinery on June 6th 2012.

We received large amounts of rain and hail in the amounts of 3.25 inches up to 3.9 inches of rain in two hours,  and hail covering the entire course in some places up to four feet deep. The size of the hail ranged from pea size to quarter size. Luckily most of the damage was to bunkers and plant life. The greens and most turf made it out OK. The course is now back to normal thanks to our hard working crew. Thanks Guys!!

# 14 fairway bunker yes that is all hail no sand left at all.

Whats left of our annual flowers.

# 5 Green side Mountain course.

One of the large Hail stones.

Removing the hail off of #10 green 

So we can get to work mowing and rolling them

 

The new lake in front of the Driving range tee up to 5 feet deep 

We had three of these on the range landing area

                                         

Trying to find the clogged drain in front of the driving range tee

New life

It's a little early for our Mountain bluebird chicks but life has no calendar. Almost all of our nest boxes have baby chicks in them this year. This is about 3 to 4 weeks earlier than normal.

Wildflowers

For the first time in years the native wildflower species are blooming. Some of the blooms are from our Pinery blend and others are native. I contribute this to some timely rains and snow this spring which we did not have last year. Lets hope the trend continues!