Tree Injury Update - Site Evaluation

White Pines showing symptoms
of herbicide injury

Tagged trees showing injury to
more then 40% of tree 

On Thursday the 22nd Dupont sent a team to evaluate the injury caused to trees from the herbicide Imprelis.  The team consisted of an arborist, and 2 representatives from a 3rd party.  Ryan Moore, and Fritz toured them around the grounds at Forest lake to all the trees expressing herbicide injury.  136 trees were evaluated, primarily White Pine, Norway Spruce and Colorado Spruce.  Of these trees, 81 of them showed signs of 40% or more injury. These trees have been flagged with an orange ribbon.  We have ordered tree tags to mark all 136 trees that were evaluated so we can closely monitor their health.  The report of all data collected has been sent to Dupont.  We will wait to be contacted, once Dupont has analyzed the tree data collected on site.

Evaluation Team collecting data from a White Pine grove.

Aerification



 Greens aeration has been completed.  We aerified and removed cores from all of the greens on September 6th.  Despite 3 days of rain that followed we were able to fill the core holes with sand during that week.  The picture on the left shows the 11th green finished on September 9th.  The greens have healed in well over the last 2 weeks, with the majority of holes bridged across and providing good smooth putting surfaces.

We have begun aerifying the fairways on the course.  This process will take us a few weeks, as we tackle 2 fairways per day until we are complete.  Information on the fairways being aerified will be available daily at the first tee along with cart instructions on the affected golf holes.

#12 Fairway Aerification September 21st

Deer Damage and Tree Protection

Labor Day each year marks the time when we frequently start seeing deer traveling through the golf course.  Although we enjoy having these beautiful animals around, and providing a green space corridor for them to travel, we do experience some challenges.  The hoofs of deer can cause temporary indentations on our greens as they travel from one end of the course to another.  More importantly, during the fall male deer rub the velvet off their new antlers on the trunks of new and soft bark trees.  This action by the deer marks their territory as well as simulates a  "mock" battle with the tree trunk strengthening the buck's shoulders and neck muscles for future battles.  In the early spring the deer also will use the tree trunks to help shed their antlers. The picture on the left shows the typical damage that antler rub does to the soft bark on a new tree.  The picture on the right shows a tree guard in place for protection.



We have installed protection on our young trees throughout the golf course.  Using 4" drainage pipe for our smaller caliber tree trunks and an "Incamat" fabric to protect our larger caliber susceptible trees, we have been successful in deterring the deer over the last few year's.  These guards will remain on the trees until spring.

Aerification

Tuesday September 6th we will start our core aerification at FLCC.  Core aerification is the process of removing a small core (or plug) of soil from the turf to allow space for air, water and nutrients to move in the soil.  Aerification holes on the greens will be removed and filled with sand, while the cores from tees and fairways will be busted up and used to top dress their respective areas.
      The golf course receives daily traffic and compaction from golfers feet, carts and maintenance equipment.  Compacted soils lead to poor root growth and as result can create weaker turf.  The short term disruption from aerification of the golf course yields long-term benefits to our playing surfaces.
      On Tuesday we will be aerifying and topdressing the greens, which will take a few days to fully complete.  Once finished we will move onto the tees, and fairways.  The first Tee will be notified daily of our progress with aerification, and which areas we will be working on that particular day.