Carmel Country Club Agronomy

  Almost 2 inches of rain, or liquid gold as we value it currently, fell from the sky over the past few days. Carmel lake has just barely started to overflow after being about 3 feet down. That means we have just captured almost 10 million gallons of fresh water and the wells are finished pumping for the season. The pH of rain is usually below 6 which means it is acidic. After a long dry stretch our turf was ready for a cleansing and the rain did just that. The rain helps wash down built up bicarbonates and salt, allowing for better water infiltration and release of nutrients for the turf, a great thing. Along with 10 million gallons of water came 100 million leaves this week. The frosts last week certainly changed some leaf color out there and the winds from the storm knocked plenty loose. We are just starting to get the tractor blowers back out on the turf but the team has been fighting the leaves on foot this week as much as possible. We had about 3 hours on Monday before the ra...

  The sun pushed down some 38 degree air this morning resulting in the heaviest frost of the week in the rough grass. The short turf is insulated just enough by 50 degree soil temps to keep the frost from forming yet. Zebra stripes and dormant looking rough are on the way. With warm season grass growth all but finished for the year, the battle against annual bluegrass (Poa annua) will intensify. Poa annua is a winter annual meaning it germinates in the fall and winter and dies in the summer. Warm season turf has no defense naturally against a weed that wants to germinate and grow all winter. In fact, Poa annua is one of the most invasive weeds on the planet. It has been found growing in Antarctica and is a problem for the trails on Mt. Kilimanjaro on the equator. So here in North Carolina we have started spraying a few different pre and post emerge herbicides to prevent and stop Poa from taking over our warm season turf for the next 5 months. The bermuda greens get a different pre-...

  80 degrees and low humidity is ideal for golf but we sure could use a little rain for the turf out there. A big focus over the past few weeks has been identifying irrigation issues and making sure the zoysia on the south stays healthy going into dormancy. This head for example on 18, was stuck in the same position and needed to be replaced. A stuck head quickly leads to a section of the approach area to be wet and then the rest of the turf it was responsible for watering to be dry. In addition to the water quality issues we discussed last week, we are working to come up with a plan to solve how to best deliver water to the turf all across the property. The cooler nights allowed us to put the verticutter out on the bentgrass greens this week. The vertical blades were set to just tickle the top of the turf, slicing any longer leaf blades and helping tighten up the bent. A light dusting of sand topdressing followed the verticutter.  The more aggressive greens groomer brush fol...

  Greetings all and welcome to the first post of Carmel's Agronomy blog. This page will be updated most Thursday afternoons by myself (Chris Harriman, Director of Agronomy) or by South Course Superintendent Micah Pennybaker or North Course Superintendent Eric Downs. My first order of business here is to thank both Micah and Eric for getting this property through one of the toughest summers on record. Our goal of enhancing the golf experience at Carmel by promoting healthy and consistent conditions is set and we are off and running. Although this is our first post for Carmel, this is about the 900th blog post of my career. Each of those 900 posts were from golf courses with bentgrass greens. Diving into the consistency and conditions of the South Course greens is not just a priority it is a passion! So far, we have modified greens mower setups including changing out rollers and lowering heights while increasing additional rolling frequency. The water has been turned down, Subairs tu...