Regrowth

After the long period of hot and dry weather we had at the end of June and through most of July, a lot of areas in the fairways were turning brown. Most of these spots were patches of Poa annua (Annual Bluegrass) which tends to have a shallow root system and, like the name suggests, acts as an annual plant and dies off when under stress.

We have gotten almost 3 inches of rain in the month of August so far and most of these areas have greened up. Some, like the area above, did not do as well. Last week, we got out the slit seeder and used this as an opportunity to increase the amount of bentgrass in the fairways. We put about 75 lbs of seed into the weak areas in the fairways. This includes all of number 9 fairway, as this was a hole in which we have always had problems due to the high amount of Poa.

As you can see from the pictures, the seed is starting to grow in straight lines where the slit seeder cut a slit and dropped the seed. Because of the nature of Creeping bentgrass, it will spread from those lines and, hopefully, fill in the bare and weak areas.