Here is the first plot for operation pollinator. This will be the first of many to come. In this area there are many different types of wildflower seeds. Almost all seeds are perennial, so they will come up every year. This will be slow at first but by next year they should be in full bloom all year round. I can't wait.
A chemical producer, Syngenta, has created a program called Operation Pollinator. This program is trying to help the increase bee populations. Bee colonies have been declining for many years now for many unknown reasons, this decline as bee colony collapse or BCC. The pollinator program is encouraging golf courses, farms and home owners to plant wild flowers in outer areas to help increase the colonies. Bees are one of the most important insects on earth because they pollenate most of the food we eat. If these colonies decline too much it will cause a decline in crop production. This will have major impacts on local economies. On the course we will be picking some of our outer areas to allow for wildflowers to grow. Some areas are already doing this. On the left of number 5 fairway we have left the grass grow. What we noticed is that there are white flowers growing up through the grasses. These have already started helping bees in the area. We have an active honey bee colony on number 6 in a tree. This is the second large colony that we have had in that area. A few years ago a tree split and I had a local apiary come and save the colony. He told me that they are an extremely docile hive because none of the bees attacked when he was harvesting them. The hive on 6 will stay in place until the tree falls. So please if you are scared or allergic to bees please stay away of the tree on 6 that has the signs around it. This is a link to the operation pollinator web site. http://www.operationpollinator.com This is a link to all the food that need bees to pollinate them. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated_by_bees A great video from the golf channel about golf courses conditions expectations. This is a new machine called the Air2g2. Basically this is fracking a green. This machine pushes tines into the green surface to a depth of 9 inches. It then sends a bust of air into the subsoil. This relieves compaction deep underground. It does all of this with only leaving a small hole, no clean up and no disruption of play. We will be working this practice into our aerification rotation. If you would like to see this in action go to their website. http://www.air2g2.com I have had a lot of questions about the collars this year. We installed Penn Trio bentgrass on most of the collars last fall. We were not able to aerify it early this spring because the sod had not rooted yet, we had to wait. The original schedule was to aerify collars on May 21st. This was pushed back to the 28th due to weather and moving of opening day. We have completed the aerification on the course except for 2 greens. They will be completed today. After assessing all of the bentgrass on the course, it seems to me that they are just young and compacted. Their root system is not deep enough. This is why we will be aerifying and top dressing the collars on a monthly basis. We need to relieve as much compaction as we can that resulted from the construction. We will continue to monitor the situation and make necessary changes when needed. Thank you. We had a pretty strong thunder storm pass through last night that covered us with pea size hail. It dumped an inch of rain on us. We also had another storm pass through this morning. For those reasons we will not be able to cut greens. We will be concentrating on clean up for Friday and this weekend. Today we were not able to cut or roll greens. They are too soft for that practice. We are able to change pin placements and rake bunkers. Course is very saturated everywhere. Due to the heavy rain forecasted, club officials decided to postpone opening day one week. A good decision since 2 inches of rain fell today. On a positive note all of the new bunkers held up well. Only had three bunkers with some minor issues but they will be an ongoing process until we get them right. Tomorrow is the Oliver Moon qualifier match. It is going to be a wet and soggy day. I don't know if we will be able to cut greens or not. If we do they will be single cut only. Bunkers will be repaired and I will have workers on course all day to try to catch up on some work. This was taken two weeks ago. This was a week ago. This was today. Filling in well. UPDATE - 4/24/14 Coming along well. Bent is slowly starting to germinate. Temperatures are not helping recovery. UPDATE: 5/1/14 It's getting close. This was a picture of 13 two weeks ago. This was the same green today. Things are progressing well. UPDATE - 4/24/14 Recovery will be slow. We are trying to speed up germination by putting covers on to keep heat in the soil. UPDATE: 5/1/14 Almost ready. |
Superintendent
Gino Marchetti Assistant Superintendent
Les Lear Assistant Superintendent
Brandon Wisnosky Assistant-in-Training
Melinda Wesley Foreman
Bill Noll Mechanic Jim Saslo Past Employees
Drew White - Superintendent of south course at Westchester Country Club Patrick Moran - Superintendent Berwick Country Club Josh Dixon - LA Country Club Related Links
GCSAA Pocono Turfgrass Association USGA Glen Oak Country Club Penn State Turfgrass Science Penn State Turf Management Mark Mungeam - GOCC Archeitect Total Turf - 10 &18 Tee Project 2013 White Construction - Bunker Project 2013 Maintenance Calender
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May 2015
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