BERKELEY HALL GOLF
GOLF
MAINTENANCE UPDATE
SUMMER MAINTENANCE ummer is the busiest time of year for golf course superintendents and their teams across the Southeast. Bermuda grass begins to grow aggressively when evening temperatures reach 65 degrees. This allows the agronomy team to begin its summertime cultural practices such as vertical mowing, aeration, and top-dressing. Good cultural practices are the necessary evil to produce consistent conditions. Disturbing the surface during the summer allows us to provide great playing conditions the other nine months of the year. These practices must occur in the summer to ensure turfgrass recovery. This past winter, persistent overcast skies, above average rainfall, and below average temperatures created a difficult environment for turfgrass survival. Such conditions highlight the need to always prepare for the unexpected wet winters that occur in the Lowcountry. The biggest challenge Berkeley Hall faces is the foundation it is built on. The heavy clay soils are great when dry but when 20
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consistently wet weather occurs the clay soil struggles to dry out. Our goal this summer is to help our soils allow water to get to the drains. The cultural practice of aeration and sand topdressing improves soil conditions, by removing the clay and silt particles and replacing it with a coarse sand. This improves water infiltration and allows water down into the drainage system. In addition, these sand channels provide an unrestricted pathway for turfgrass roots to grow. Aeration is most important on greens. Low mowing heights puts a lot of stress on the turfgrass, and it is crucial that the plant can grow roots to endure the stress from Mother Nature and what we mechanically put on the greens. Our goal during the aeration process is to remove upwards of 25% of the putting surface and replace that with fresh sand. This enables the sand base soil to persist throughout the expected life expectancy. These practices provide high percolation rates which in turn prevent saturation to the playing surface and help maintain a
healthy turfgrass root system. This will assist in turfgrass survival during the difficult winter months. With our commitment to improve course conditions and keeping this past winter in mind, the summer maintenance practices will be very extensive.
SUMMER MAINTENANCE SCHEDULE MAY 16-19 (South Course closed for aeration) JUNE 1-30 (North Course closed) JULY 12-AUGUST 11 (South Course closed)
