Carmel Country Club Agronomy

  The team has been grinding away on projects again this week as the weather has been absolutely perfect for mid-November. Another drain was cut in 6 fairway on the South up closer to the green. We will keep going on drainage so long as Mother Nature allows this winter. Consistently drier fairways mean we can get carts back off the path sooner after a rain, ball roll improves and we see less problems from earthworm castings through the off season, all good things! The guys over on the North thinned a few more trees off of 6 this week and have been working behind the stump grinder contractor. All stumps from recent tree removals have been ground down and he was also able to knock out quite a few old stumps around the property like to the left of 9 North. Cleaning up stumps is probably the most arduous part of tree work but we do have a mini excavator on the way that should help out significantly. Scott Morgan has our chipper trailer ready to rock and roll for next week. This trailer...

  Boomer was back looking for shade today as temperatures head to 70 again. 27 degrees on Tuesday morning was easily the coldest it has been in 7 or 8 months. The top layer of the greens were frozen and the bunkers had a short lived crust on them. The sun and normal temps are back now and so long as you are out of the wind you will have great conditions through the weekend. The South was closed on Monday so after a successful Member Member event over the weekend we were ready to dig in to some drainage. A quick warm up of things to come this winter, this smaller drain was put in on the left of 6 fairway before the fairway bunkers. The sod is removed, soil trenched and taken away then gravel, pipe and sand are installed to wick water away faster through this swale. We will continue working through chronically wetter areas this winter, especially landing zones and cart entry points. Not to be outdone the North fixed a broken drain in 11 fairway and then installed a larger line just u...

  The frost was back early this week as the low temperatures dipped below 40 again. Although it has been breezy, the temperatures have been very pleasant in the afternoons with plenty of sunshine. The courses have dried back out and should present well for this weekends Men's Member Member event. A cold blast of air is on the way for Monday where we will see sub 30 temps which will be plenty to finish turning the bermuda rough off color. Our winter weed control application finished up this week across all 175 acres of bermudagrass on property. This application should both prevent and take care of any Poa annua that has popped up as we discussed last week. With such a large area, this is close to a $20,000 material cost application! Some of this Celebration rough is so dense on the South that the Poa pressure should be much lower. Next year we are very much looking forward to thinning some of this rough out, getting it mowed a little lower to see if it can become a slightly more pla...