Greens Update

This winter was definitely not kind to our putting surfaces and we have a encountered a severe amount of damage on all 19 greens.  The primary cause, was a layer of ice that had developed on top of them starting in early January and lasted for 55 to 85 days.  Coupled with the tremendously cold winter and significant snowfall, many South East Michigan courses are suffering winter damage.

Last week we started on our journey to recovery.  We have decided our best approach is to regrow our playing surfaces from grass that survived the winter, Annual Bluegrass (POA) seed that exists in the soil, and incorporating a newer variety of Bent grass seed.  There are many steps to our recovery, with the foundation of it being time and patience to achieve positive results.   Our first step in our process at Forest Lake, was incorporating the Bent grass seed into the existing green.  Below is start to finish of seeding the greens;

Verti-cutting double direction to create channels for bent grass seed to fall into

Depth of first verti-cut slice

Cleaning up thatch and debris from verti-cutting

Several cartloads of material were collected through this pocress

Spiking the greens 3 different directions to allow more slits for seed to fall into

Drop spreading seed in 2 different directions

Bent Grass Seed

Topdressing to cover seed and to help for good seed/soil contact

Applying starter fertilizer to boost nutrition to provide food during seed germination

Rolling to also help with seed/soil contact

Water, Water, Water.  Very important to keep seeds and young plants moist during establishment

Covering all of the greens to increase temperature and humidity during germination

We are hoping to see our first results of germination after 7 days.  We have already seen some positive results in new active growth from the existing turf.