Turf Nursery 3.0

Tucked away in the far northwest corner of the property beside 13 tee is one of the most important areas on the golf course.  Over the last three years, we have been constantly expanding our turf nursery in that area where we grow all the extra grass used to repair damaged areas on the course.

We first created a very small nursery there in 2013, built it a little bit larger in 2014, and now in 2015 we have finished version 3.0 that features a whopping 6,000 sq ft of bentgrass (compared to about 3,500 sq ft last year.)

We prepped the area by stripping all of the bluegrass rough sod to use out on the course, we then added two more irrigation heads in the area where we wanted to expand to, hauled in about 30 tons of sand, and then started shaping.

The area is graded so that it is high in the middle, thus making it shed surface water off in all directions without puddling.  We applied a variety of starter fertilizers to the entire area to encourage seedling growth and development, and then seeded a mixture of T1 and Alpha bentgrass.  Our goal is to push the turf on the nursery to establish as dense as possible by the end of the year, with the idea that it can be harvested as sod first thing next spring.

Shooting grades on the sand in order to ensure that there would not be
puddling water in the area.

Collin dropping seed.  We are trying a blend of two different, but similar
bentgrasses, T1 and Alpha this year.

After about 5 days of very light, frequent watering, the seed begins to
germinate.  This picture was taken on day 10.

Today marked 19 days after seeding, and the area received its first
mowing.  Overall the seedlings are off to a great start.

After a winter like last year, and the spring that followed it, expanding our nursery is the greatest insurance policy we can have against mother nature.  The Poa annua in our greens and collars will continue to die more winters than not, and it has always been my goal to get as much bentgrass into those areas as possible in order to be able to provide more consistent turf conditions during all the months of the golf season.