It was another sub-30*F morning in Highlands. We're continuing with fairway inner-seeding, doing each fairway two directions. However, we experimented on #1 fairway by going 3 directions rather than two. I'm curious if that helps or not in our goal of introducing new species of turf in the fairways.
Using our new irrigation system, we are irrigating the seed on those fairways. The key to successfully germinating seed is to keep the surface damp. If it dries out, the seed will not germinate. Therefore, on the fairways that we seeded, we will be lightly watering them each morning until our seed germinates and establishes. On a side note, the control we have now of the irrigation system is so nice. On the photo below, you see only one of the three rows of sprinkler heads running.
This morning, our licensed spray technician, Billy Brooks, started treating all of the Hemlocks on the golf course with Imidacloprid, known as Merit by its trade name. We are using three different formulations of this product to get the job done. The first is the Mauget 4mL capsules you see on the tree below. The other formulations are the 75 WSP which is applied as a soil drench and finally 0.5 G granular form that we sprinkle around the base of Hemlocks that are 8 foot tall or less. The soil drench application in predominately what we use on the golf course because it is the most cost effective way (and most efficient way in my opinion) to treat Hemlocks for the Woolly Adelgid, an insect that was unfortunately introduced to the area in 2002. In order to keep Hemlocks alive, treatment is required.
There are varying opinions on the length of residual control the insecticide will have in the tree. Some say as much as 6 or 7 years. Rather than risk it, we have been treating our Hemlocks about every third year. Between treatment years, we monitor hemlocks for Adelgid activity and if we see something, we'll use an insecticide called Safari, which is applied as a basal bark treatment. In other words, the insecticide is applied directly to the exterior of the tree, where it is absorbed into the tree and quickly moves up the top and branches.
The 4 mL capsules are placed around the tree. The rate is one capsule for every 6 inches of tree circumference at chest level. In this case, this tree has an 8-foot circumference and 16 capsules drilled along its base.
As promised, walk mowers and rollers are out today! Greens are being mowed at 0.130", just slightly higher than our in-season height of cut that ranges from 0.115" to 0.120". In another week, we should be looking and rolling really nice. We have not started double cutting daily yet. We are about two weeks out from that.
At the Hudson House we started on a small project of landscaping around new the generator next to the parking lot. In order to give ourselves a nice buffer to plant in, we removed a significant portion of asphalt that wasn't being used for parking because it wasn't wide enough to make a spot. Plant material is on order and includes such plants as inkberry holly, Nellie Stevens Holly and for arborvitae. The trees and shrubs should arrive in the next two weeks at which point we'll put them in the ground. Stay tuned!