After a terrific winter golfing season at Olde Florida, summer arrived and that means it's "cultural practice season!”
Each summer we schedule extended closures so we can perform the vital tasks of aerification, vertical mowing and topdressing. These are essential to insure the turfgrass remains healthy and the golf course is in the best possible condition for years to come. The cultural practices we perform this summer will be similar to most years.
We accomplish the majority of our cultural practices in the summer when our play is the slowest, but equally important, it’s the time of year when our warm season bermudagrasss is most actively growing.
We are most aggressive with cultural practices in early to mid-summer. This is when the days are the longest. The summer solstice (longest day of the year) is June 20. We also want to perform them early in the summer in an attempt to avoid cloudy, rainy days. Weather is obviously unpredictable, but in general as summer progresses in Southwest Florida, we see an increase in cloudy weather. Clouds and rain reduce sunlight, and sunlight is essential to warm season turfgrass growth/recovery.
Historically we also have a greater likelihood of severe weather from tropical systems or hurricanes as the summer progresses. The negative impacts from severe storms could delay or even cancel scheduled procedures.
For turfgrass to thrive it needs sunlight, water, nutrients and air. All are critical, but the one we try to influence the most in the summer is air (in the soil). A well drained rootzone is critical for turfgrass. Aerification, vertical mowing and topdressing all help to dilute the natural occurring organic matter beneath the surface. This helps to increasing air in the soil, water infiltration rate and ultimately turfgrass rooting. The pictures below provide a visualization of what we are trying to accomplish.
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| Soil Profile #8 Fairway.June 14 |
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| Soil Profile #3 Green. June, 14 |
In addition to traditional core aeration we perform on the greens, since 2019 we’ve hired a contractor to complete two, separate Drill and Fill processes. The Drill and Fill machine has a series of 1” bits that drill to a depth of 10” and then fill the created channel with bagged, dried “329” sand. The first Drill and Fill of the summer was completed from May 28 to May 31. During the process, 79 pallets of bagged, kiln dried sand was deposited into the subsurface of our greens. Each pallet has 56 bags weighing 50 pounds each. The total weight of the sand was 221,200 pounds (110.6 tons).
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| Drill and Fill on Practice Green. May, 28 |
After the Drill and Fill process was completed, my staff cleaned and smoothed the surface, applied soil amendments, topdressed the surface with “304” sand and performed a 5/8” core aeration on 3” by 3” spacing. Plugs were removed and the surface cleaned and smoothed.
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| Core Aeration on Practice Green. May, 29 |
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| Practice Green on Flag Day June, 14 |
During this first closure we once again topdressed the fairways with 1/4” of “329” sand. The total weight of the sand was 1,760,000 pounds (880 tons). We will topdress our wetter fairways multiple times throughout the summer.
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| 880 Tons of Sand. Clubhouse Parking Lot |
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| Fairway Top-Dressing. Hole 16 |
In addition to the five, week-long closures, Olde Florida is closed for golf play each Monday from May through October. These Mondays allow us to perform additional cultural practices that generally take a single day to perform. For example, on Monday, May 19th all of the tees were aerified, and on Monday, June 9th all of the approaches/chipping areas were aerified. All of the process (soil amendments, topdressing, etc.) performed during greens aerification are replicated on tees and approaches.
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| Tee Aerification, Hole 12 |
I hope your summer is off to a great start!
