Would you rather?............

Is a fun game to play, and today I find myself asking if I would rather deal with "hot and dry" or "damp and muggy."  Since these two conditions are typical of our Northern Summers, these are the choices I provided for this game.  I have to say, "hot and dry" by far!  Now, I must clarify.  Dry is only tolerable if your irrigation coverage and output capabilities are adequate, if not, dry is no fun.  Our coverage and output is less than stellar, and typically hand watering replaces mowing.  We have discussed in the last couple of posts localized dry spots and how they also create the need for labor intensive hand watering.

Hand watering can also be necessary because as you can see in the photo, if we run the sprinkler to water the mound on the left, you would be hitting from soup on the right.  Irrigation is scheduled for adequate moisture in the majority of the playing surface and NOT the least common denominator.

The first photo also shows that the area affected by the dryness is relatively small in comparison to the entire fairway.  In the second photo, we zoom in on the area circled in the first photo.  Yuck, looks like a big dead spot, right?  In the third photo, we zoom in on the area in the second photo and reveal that with a little bit of moisture, we have begun to recuperate.  

Recuperation of these areas that were affected by moisture stress takes some time.  I constantly remind the staff to be careful when watering these areas.  The tendency is to expect them to turn green as you water them and thus drowning them and creating soggy areas that die and turn to dirt.  Educating the staff that these areas will take time to heal and that it is important to maintain the playability of these areas while nursing them back to health is a delicate balance.  "You can play off of brown, you can't play off of muck," is a phrase they have heard over and over again.  Encouraging them to be comfortable with the process and not expecting immediate results is a challenge.

I will explain why damp and muggy is not my choice when I return from battle with the dollar spot fungus which exploded overnight.

I would insert a clever hashtag to sign off with since my photos were edited with a popular social media app, but I really don't like hashtags.

I hope you have a marvelous day!

Turf

Sent from Erwin's phone, please excuse grammar and punctuation.