Increasing costs!

As everyone has received their July dues statement which reflects a modest 5% increase, I thought it would be appropriate to shed a little light on how our cost have skyrocketed in just one area.
The golf course industry is feeling the pain with the rising cost of energy affecting the bottom line of fertilizer budgets. Average prices that are being paid for major fertilizer nutrients have reached the highest level on record in April 2008, 228% higher than the same time eight years ago. Natural gas is a feedstock in the production of ammonia, which is the building block for all nitrogen fertilizers. The cost natural gas accounts for 70 to 90 percent of the production cost of ammonia.

Key Factors Contributing To Dramatic Price Increases:

• U.S. Ethanol Production is Increasing Domestic Fertilizer Demand.
  
• Global demand for fertilizer has placed upward pressure on fertilizer prices.
  
• The U.S. ethanol boom is driving fertilizer demand higher.
  
• Increased transportation costs to move fertilizer products is factoring into increased delivered fertilizer prices.
  
• The value of the U.S. dollar has fallen significantly in the past few years,increasing the cost of Goods imported - including fertilizer.
• High natural Gas prices in the United States continue to lead to higher fertilizer production costs.

More information regarding fertilizer and it's trade can be found at www.tfi.org

Venting!

A Mid-Summer Venting

Small Tine Aerification and light topdressing will occur:
June 23th

This mid-summer small-tine aerification is critical to the success of our greens through the summer months. The ‘venting’ using small ¼” solid tines allows for improved gas exchange and release of toxic Carbon Dioxide that has built up in the soil.

Where does all of the built up carbon dioxide gas in putting green soils come from? The majority is produced by soil-dwelling bacteria and fungi that consume oxygen and produce carbon dioxide as a by product of their metabolism. As the temperatures increase in the summer so does the production of CO2.This would not be a problem if the CO2 by-product had a way of escaping from the soil into the atmosphere. However, the thatch layer tends to act as a barrier for gas diffusion. Compaction further seals the turf surface, making gas escape even more difficult. This early summer venting aids in creating a healthy environment for the greens to survive and prosper through the summer.

Thank you for your patience and understanding during this necessary maintenance task. I expect that the greens will be completely healed within 7 days.

Member-guest week!

We are at the beginning of our Men's Member-Guest week and things are shaping up nicely for the touranment. In preparation for the tournament, the greens were verticut and topdressed last week to promote smoothness and true ball roll. The desired green speed for the tournament will be 11.5'. This is the speed that I think best shows the design characteristics of our greens and test the players ablity in a fair and equitable manner. Also in the latter part of last week and the beginning of this week we are making all efforts to ensure that any dry spot recieves water. This effort allows us to uniformly dry down the golf course in the days prior to the tournament. During the tournament our goal is to put out as little water as possible. The course is irrigated with the desire to produce and maintain firm playing conditions without making a hugh sacifice the the health of the plant. With temperatures forecasted in the mid 90's for the tournament we will be spending a lot of time handwatering and selectively turning on sprinklers heads in an effort to avoid any wet spots.

A few other house keeping items to note:

• We have cleaned up for the last wind storm. The broken tree behind #6 has been removed and sodded. In the weeks following the member-guest we will be assessing the current conditions without the tree there and be looking at our options going forward.
• Transition to the summer time Bermuda grass is coming along nicely. In the next two weeks we will be making a fertilizer application to promote more bermuda grass as the cool season ryegrass starts to succumb to the stress of summer time temperatures.

Best of luck to all who are playing the tournament. One saying that I have for tournaments of this size for everyone's enjoyment: PLAY WELL, PLAY FAIR, and PLAY FAST!

Cleaning Up

Our early summer wind storm has left quite a mess on the golf course. Cleaning up from a wind storm this strong requires a lot of man hours and detracts from our normal maintenance and manicuring. The majority of the mess should be cleaned up by the weekend. The large trees that are down will have to wait until next week. We also had to suspend our fairway aerification in order to free up labor for the clean up effort. We have fairways #1 and #18 left to aerify and we hope to complete this task as soon as we clean up all of the debris. Below are pictures of the damage and clean up effort. The only tree lost that was note worthy was the small pine located directly behind #6 green. Remember that you can click on the picture for a closer view.

Golf Course Update

As we continue to battle through another early summer heat wave here is an update as to a few of the things we are doing to provide excellent playing conditions:

• We continue to irrigate Tees and Fairways every other or every third night. We are going through wet and dry cycles to promote deeper rooting of the Ryegrass and encourage the transition to our summertime bermudagrass. So far I am very encourage by the amount of bermudagrass that is re-populating our fairways.
• We are two thirds of the way done with our early summer fairway aerification. We should be completed by next friday.
• Next week we will be changing some of our annual flowers around the clubhouse. We will be installing some flowers that have been proven winners for the hot Santa Clarita Summers. Some of the flowers that we will be installing include: Salvia, Vinca, Impatients (Shade only), and Dianthus.
• Greens are doing well. We have establish a dense stand of turf and a deep root system heading into the summer. We will continue to water the greens deeply and infrequently to encouarge deeper rooting. During the middle of the day on days where the temperature exceeds 95 degrees we will be syringing the turf to provide temporary cooling of the turf canopy. Syringing is accomplish by provide a very small amount of water either via a hose or sprinkler head to wet the leaf of the grass plant. The air movement across the wet leaf blade then creates a cooling effect for the plant.

The Perfect Lawn

As we head into summer many are looking for ways to improve the look of their lawn. Every where you look there is a lot of press regarding water conservation and reduced fertilizer and chemical input. I came across this article that relates some of the practices that you can do for your home lawn to improve that look and health of your yard with a pro-environment approach.
Follow this link:
http://realestate.msn.com/lawns/Article2.aspx?cp-documentid=5073676

To add my thoughts to this article. We are fortunate in Southern California to have very little weed pressure. In the case of a home lawn that is properly established, and is cared for in the correct ways in regards to proper irrigation, mowing height and fertility you should not have the need for herbicides. Irrigation is by far the most important aspect to lawn care in the Southwest. For nine months out of the year we do not expect to get rain and therefore rely solely on water supplied by irrigation. It is imperative that you have a irrigation system installed by a knowledgable professional and maintained to assure proper operation. Also, particular attention must be paid to avoiding run off. You must schedule run times and precipation rate to match the infiltration rate of the soil. It may be necessary to schedule in soak times to allow water to percolate through the soil before applying more water.

Here is a photo of the 18th green on Sunday of the Men's Club Championship. Note the Sunday Pin Position. Congratulations to all who played well. I hope you enjoyed the set up of the course. A lot of thought was put into a few new pin and tee positions. Most of the feedback has been positive, but feel free to tell me your opinions or thoughts.

This is the time of the year when the course plays its best. The ryegrass in the fairways is still holding on strong and the bermuda is coming through the ryegrass to fill any voids. We still are experiencing cool nights and day time temps have not been excessive which has allowed us to limit the amount of irrigation. As Craig mentioned in his last weekend release please do your part by following proper etiquette with your golf cart (See the video under related links), filling divots with the sand and seed mixture provided and properly fixing your ball marks on the greens. Please remember that a properly fixed ball mark should not show any soil on the surface.

In the month ahead our only major maintenance practice will be fairway aerfication. Like in years past we will aerify one to two fairways per day and they will be cleaned up before 11 am. On occasion this will require us to close nine holes for the early morning hours. If you plan on coming out to play only nines holes please give the proshop a call the morning of to make sure we will not be in your way.

Ladies Team play and The Classic are also our focus for the next five weeks. We will be trying to attend to all the details to make those events special for all of our members and guests.