Pond Management

We have made great strides in cleaning up our water features on the course in the last year or two.  Last year our ponds and retention areas were the best that I have ever seen them look.  This year we have only 1 pond that has been giving us a headache, #12.  I was very optimistic that our management strategies from last year would carry over into this year, but that was not the case.  The algae blooms started coming out in late June because the temperatures have been so (I want to say mild but the correct terminology would be average) average.  In a hotter year i.e. 2012 the blooms would have started in April or May.  

Last year we used Red belly Tilapia as out control method for Algae on #11, 12, 13 and 18.  It worked great so we are doing the same this season, only on #12.  Here is a picture of what they look like.

 

 We purchased 30 lbs of fish for the pond.  They were delivered in a mobile aquarium.  It was essentially a very large ice chest with a hose running from the cooler to an oxygen tank similar to a helium tank that you might see at a party supply store.  Seen below.

Adding the fish to the pond is a very manual operation.  Scoop them out with a net, load them in a laundry bucket and dump them in the pond.  Seen below.

This pond is actually more of a retention area.  It's only about 4 feet deep and has a rock floor under the sludge on the bottom.  (We found this out when we were installing Wood Duck houses in the area.  It's hard to drive a post into rock!)  The pond being large and shallow means that it is easier for light to penetrate to the floor of the pond where algae blooms with light sources.  When we sprayed chemicals in the past to control the algae it did kill the algae.  But, as it decomposed and sank it was converted to a food source(fertilizer for the blooming algae, so it actually magnified the problem.  

It seems like the fish are the best method of control that we have found yet, and it reduces our chemical usage. 

There is a downside to this method of control.  The fish die.  They are warm water fish.  when we get a massive cold rain in November they will start floating, and there will be a lot more than 30 lbs worth.  I think that the trade off of smelly fish for 1 week is worth the clean ponds for the summer.

Please remember that we do not want any fishing in the ponds on the golf course.  there is effluent water in every pond on the course and are not meant for swimming or fishing.

What a difference a year makes

Well, Summer's here again and the temperatures are starting to heat up.  Yesterday was our hottest temp so far this year at 94 degrees.  I know it sounds hot.  Just remember where we were one year ago.  We were just starting the heat wave of 2013, we were getting ready to see temperatures we had never experienced before in this region (19 degrees warmer than yesterday) and we were in the 6th week of a drought.

Last year we were so busy with the drought and the fairways and the tees were in such poor shape that we did not aerify either one of them.  Shortly after the heat wave we got a massive amount of rain for a few days.  the fairways and tees turned out to be great through the end of the season.  Well we have had an ample amount of rainfall this season (no droughts here), and the temperatures have been moderate.  So we have gotten to perform some cultural practices that we couldn't do last year.  We have completed the fairway aerification plan and we are in the process of wrapping up the tee box aerification plan.

Our tee box aerification plan is almost identical to our fairway aerification plan with the exception of the machine that we use to pull plugs and the hole size.

Our tee plan we use 5/8" tines on a 2.5" spacing.  Fortunately, our tees for the most part were constructed with a sand cap.  This means that when we pull the plugs and let them dry for a few minutes, when we hit them with a metal drag mat the sand breaks off of the plant and works back in to the surface.  This leaves only the leftover plant material to deal with.  we simply take a turbine blower and push the leftover vegetation into the roughs.  A little bit of water and were done.  Below is a short video of Spencer running the aerifier on #16 Tees.

Our Fairway plan is slightly different, same process (core, drag, blow).  We use an old fairway aerifier that we pull with a tractor.  the holes are 1" on a 6" spacing.  The soils in our fairways are clay.  so they have to have some moisture in them to be able to break up with a drag mat.  We have to wait until the day after a rain event so that the clay is not rock hard when it comes out of the ground.  After they are out of the ground we drag them and blow off the vegetation.  I kind of like our old fairway aerifier in our heavy clay soils.  the way it works the tine goes in the soil at about a 10 degree angle and it comes out at the reverse 10 degree angle,  so it has to fracture the areas around it due to its movement below the surface.  So the effected area in the soil would be closer to 2.5".

I know that everyone hates the dreaded "A" word.  but it really does make us have a better playing surface in the long run, and who knows, maybe one day we will get to backfill the holes in the fairways with sand.

A Great Project

I hope many of you notice the projects that we take on to try to enhance the wildlife here at the golf course.  We are not the only golf course that takes on these projects.  In all honesty, I see a lot of projects that other courses or organizations are doing and try to duplicate projects that are on our scale.  Items like: Purple Martin Houses, Wood Duck Houses, Bluebird Houses, Suet Cages, Mallard Hen Nesting Huts, Bat Houses are some of the small projects that we have taken on here
There has been a very neat project going on for a while now at another course in East Tennessee, Harrison Bay.  Superintendent Paul Carter has a Bald Eagle nesting program.  The program is to show the nesting patterns of the Bald Eagle.  That on its own sounds like a great program.  The Program is to SHOW the nesting patterns.  So, Naturally they installed a webcam at the nest and have a live feed on u-stream the link is provided below for anyone who is interested in viewing the nest.  Oh Yea, they just hatched two baby eagles.
Click here to view the Bald Eagle Cam at Harrison Bay
I wish that we could take on some projects such as this one but unfortunately we are not there yet.  But at least there are people out there that are trying to do great things such as this.