Calabasas Country Club
Monthly Update December 2010
With the holidays and vacation requests December is always an interesting month; this one being particularly interesting with the rain slowing us down as well.
December has been a cool wet month with an average temperature of 56 degrees, the high reached 82 degrees and low got down to 26 degrees; Their was also 14 days of rain leaving us with 7.05” of rainfall for December.
Here is a recap of projects and goals accomplished in December 2010:
- Finished fence on hole #15
- Trimmed parking lot trees
- Edged bunkers
- Removed rocks from bunkers
- Edged cart paths
- Completed employee break room
- Leaf removal
- Repaired gate on #11 tee
- Seven dead or fallen trees where cut, chipped and split
- Completion of fence on #18 around electric panels
- Removed cattails from stream to allow water to flow freely
- Widened #10 stream to aid water flow
- Aerified, fertilized, top dressed and seeded all 49 tees
- Needle tine aerified all greens twice and #’s 1 and 14 six times
- The putting green roots grew from ½” to 3” since October
- Lowered the pH from 8. to 6.2
- Leached out a substantial amount of sodium from a EC reading of 3 to 1.2
As a bench mark the greens would be the healthiest at a pH from 5.0 to 6.5 and an EC reading of 0.75 to 1.50.
In conclusion December turned out to be a productive month with some much needed rain. There are a lot of projects and improvements planned for 2011. Here are a few planned activities and when to expect to see them:
- Fix broken cart paths “throughout the season”
- Finishing the sand replacement in the bunkers “planed for early Spring”
- Deep tine aerification “planed in March”
- Tree pruning and dead tree removal “Throughout the season”
- Stump removal “planed in February”
- Drainage repair “throughout the season”
- Raising and properly adjusting sprinklers “now and throughout the season”
More aggressive maintenance overall, employing cultural practices and attention to detail.
Regards,
Eric Wenzinger
Golf Course Superintendent
