May 2024 Update

It has been a busy May for Golf Maintenance with the turfgrass growing at an accelerated rate and small projects beginning around the golf course.

#8 Green - May 21st

Our first Wednesday closure allowed us to perform some much-needed cultural practices to the putting surfaces after 8 months of heavy play. The greens were Verticut, Double Cut, Aerified, and Topdressed. This process will hopefully be completed every 2-4 weeks during the summer, with an obvious major increase in intensity during our July closure. 

Greens were Verticut in 2 directions and then Double Cut prior to Aerification.

The coring tines utilized during our Wednesday cultural practices are much smaller in size compared to what will be used during our major July closure. While much less surface area is impacted, small coring tines still greatly assist with thatch removal, alleviating compaction and improving oxygen exchange.

Greens are blown clean prior to rolling and dragging in topdressing sand.

With growth rates rapidly increasing, we have decided to put our brushes back on the fairway mowers. These brushes are mounted in front of the cutting units and are used throughout the summer to enhance playability and turf density, improve aesthetics, and help control the development of thatch by encouraging vertical leaf orientation and growth. 

Fairway brushes were purchased last year and have been a great addition to our toolbox in enhancing playability and improving overall turf quality.

We have been identifying irrigation coverage deficiencies throughout the golf course and have recently added supplemental irrigation to several areas. Over the past few weeks, we have addressed the blue tees on #10, the green slope on #14, and the green slope on #15. With additional irrigation heads, we are now able to reduce run times while greatly improving overall efficiency.

This new irrigation head was installed behind the blue tee on #10, where a lack in coverage was observed. Turfgrass quality has already started to improve.

The design and planning phases of the irrigation and landscaping installation around the new clubhouse have begun. Materials are being ordered, and once the area has been prepped and shaped, we will be ready to get to work.

Our honey bees have been working hard throughout the property and we will likely have our first honey harvest next month. As a reminder, the honey harvested from our Copperleaf hives will be sold to members, with proceeds being used to help fund our environmental programs.

Our hives located behind GCM will soon produce sweet benefits for our members, in addition to their pollination services to our native plant material.

The golf course root pruning will occur during our closure on Wednesday, May 29th. The pruning of tree roots is completed each year by an outside contractor. Tree roots compete with turfgrass for moisture and nutrients. By pruning below-ground roots, turfgrass quality improves without sacrificing tree health.

Our annual Curfew application is scheduled to take place during our closure from June 4th through June 6th. Curfew is a soil fumigant designed to control nematodes (microscopic roundworms) that cause tremendous damage to turfgrass by feeding on roots. Controlling these insects is critical for year-round plant health.

As always, please feel free to email any questions, comments or concerns to parkerf@copperleafgc.com. See you on the course! 

#5 Green - May 2024

More Orange Dots

If you are observant, you may notice dozens of small orange dots on the fairway of hole 10. The University of Florida has selected Copperleaf to help conduct testing on products that control Nematodes. After sampling other area club's, Copperleaf's counts of these microscopic worms that live in the soil, were the highest, and so will provide the most accurate data for their trial.

If you look closely on hole 10 fairway, you will see the orange paint highlighting the different test plots. The soil sample locations were filled with white sand.

Nematodes are not visible to the naked eye, however can cause injury and death to susceptible hosts, such as Bermuda grass. The grass becomes weak, thin and drought stressed as the roots are reduced to less than an inch in depth. Unfortunately, the one product that successfully controlled this nuisance pest was removed from sale in Florida over a year ago. There are now many companies promoting the latest and greatest products to control the insect and it is difficult, as an end user, to determine which product is the most effective.

The dark green strips of turf were treated one week prior with Nemacur. The results were so drastic that a second application was made to blend the weakened turf into the rest of the fairway. This picture was taken during the summer of 2011.

Using a grant from Bayer Crop Science, Dr. Billy Crow is testing the effectiveness of one of their products, Nortica, that was released last year. The research data will be shared nationally for all Superintendent's to review once the study is complete.

Unfortunately, Copperleaf is impacted with nematodes throughout the course and it takes additional maintenance practices to prevent damage such as additional watering, the use of moisture retention products and additional fertilizer. Nematode damage becomes most prevalent beginning in March when dry winds, warm temperatures, low rain and compaction from the golfing season begin to take their toll on the turf grass.

The true benefit of conducting such a study at Copperleaf is that we will directly benefit from the data gathered to determine if this new product will improve turf quality under our conditions. We can then determine if applying this new product is worth the investment. I look forward to sharing the results with you as they become available.