This week at Sunset: 7-17-2017

Sunrise @ Sunset CC

This week at Sunset we’ve started off with continuing showers brought on by the heavy damp air. The temperatures have cooled off as a result, but expect it to warm up as we get closer to the weekend. For the month of July we haven’t received nearly the amount of rain we received last month. We’ve received 2.25” so far and last month at this time we were close to 6” of rain. Hopefully, we can finish out July somewhere between 4-5” of rain for the month.

This week  we are addressing the over abundance of goosegrass/crowfootgrass and crabgrass around the golf course. These weeds have really blown up in the past few weeks from all the rain and favorable growing conditions. Because we didn’t really have a true winter this year this has equaled to a larger breakout of these summer annual weeds. I will reevaluate with our chemical reps on a suitable/preferred pre-emergent for goosegrass, crabgrass, and also poa annua for the cool season. The pre-emergent that I used on our greens can sometimes be harmful to the bermudagrass, especially during the transition. So, we put the herbicide out at a smaller rate to ensure no injury would occur. However, goosegrass has become resistant to a lot of the products on the market.

Mature goosegrass dead in less than 24 hours on #13 rough.

We recently added a 3-point hitch 200 gallon sprayer to fight these weeds in our fairways and rough. I tested some areas around the golf course (#’s 7,13,14, and driving range) to see what it would do on some of the weeds that are in different stages. The products that I sprayed killed everything in 24 hours and didn’t harm the bermudagrass at all.  I tried it on bahia grass patches that is growing in bermuda rough and it knocked the bahia right out. So, we will continue with this concoction the rest of the summer and hopefully we’ll be nice and clean by the Ramsey Pidcock.

We have continued to stay ahead of the game with mowing rough. However, the rain today caused us to hold off till tomorrow. I mentioned that we are adding an additional rough mower from Jacobsen. That mower was dropped off today and will be in use starting tomorrow. Again, this mower will take place of the pull-behind reel mower that we’ve been mowing the Bermuda rough with. The good thing is that we will be able to mow everything on the course with this mower along with the deck mower. We will also be mowing the fairways 3 days a week instead of twice. The bermuda has really taken off and I plan to apply a growth regulator to reduce the amount of clippings.

As a reminder, please remember to keep golf carts behind the white lines that you see throughout the golf course. We do not need any traffic inside those white lines or around the greens. With the Bermuda grass in its most vulnerable stage with the transition in full swing it is important to keep traffic away from highly sensitive areas- greens complexes, tops of teeboxes, and other weak areas throughout the course. Help us out by keeping your golf cart behind the white lines and off the green complexes and near the tops of tees. Those of you who use pullcarts are fine to cross the line as pullcarts are lighter and less aggressive. However, make sure not to pull your carts across the green. Again, I want to thank everyone for helping us keep your golf course healthy and in shape.

Finishing morning setup on #14 green prior to the final day of the club championship.

Thank you for following us this week as we strive to get better every day. As always, please feel free to reach out with any questions/comments that you may have by using this blog, Facebook page, or emailing me at davisjoey@hotmail.com. Thanks for reading!

See you on the course!

Joey Davis