Independence update

Happy 4th of July!

Good Evening! As Independence day winds down I finally have time to sit down and catch up on some writing. Its been 31 days since the Sprigs were spread and crimped and there growing very well. We put a reel mower on them for the first time this morning cutting at .850 (roughly 7/8ths of an inch). This came after cutting them all last week with our intermediate rough mower set to 1.5 inches to trim up some of the larger clumps.

 5 Fairway, June 24th 

5 Fairway, June 27th

We put 4.5 pounds of nitrogen down over a 2 week span while reducing watering to encourage the roots to establish and grow.  As it was a holiday and the course was full of happy golfers playing the Par 3 course we have set up we were only able to cut 2 of the fairways this morning before it became impractical to continue. If the rain there calling for misses us by some chance we will finish cutting the fairways tomorrow, if not we will have to wait till it dries out some to finish. Were planing to fertilize again after all the fairways have been mowed, we'd also like to get a foliar nutrient feed on them after they have been cut but        that will depend on how much time we have with the short work week.

We would like to open the fairways some time next week depending on how they look after they have been cut. There's many factors that determine whether or not we can open them but we're all working hard to achieve that goal. Once there open we will probably need to instate a temporary "pick and place" rule as we currently only have between 65% and 75% coverage. 8-10 days may change that but we'll just have to wait and see.

First cut with the intermediate mower at 1.5"

 As you drive around every single day its sometimes hard to recognize any change in the fairways because your seeing them every minute of every day. However in the last week I've been able to see the growth change almost every morning, luckily i got some pictures from almost the same location on a couple of the fairways which shows the amount they grew in just 3 or 4 days. We're going to keep pushing them with nitrogen and mowing and get them to start moving sideways more. If you scroll down there are some comparison photos from 5 and 17 Fairways.

I hope everyone has a good and restful Independence Day and can get out to play a round of golf at some point.

Peter Danaher 

Assistant Superintendent 

Talbot CC 

5 Fairway June 24th 

5 Fairway June 27th 

17 Fairway June 29th 

17 Fairway July 2nd