Creeping Bentgrass Nursery Update

Maintaining 39 acres of creeping bentgrass in the Mid-Atlantic transition zone can be challenging at times. Heat stress, drought stress, severe weather, foot traffic, golf cart and maintenance equipment traffic, pest pressure from weeds, insects and disease, are the main causes of stress on this cool-season turfgrass.  Having a bentgrass nursery on site, enables our staff to use small amounts of sod as needed to make small repairs to the turf.    A nursery also provides fresh healthy turf that can be used during various projects.   For example, last winter we installed over 1700 linear feet of drainage in fairways.  Some bentgrass sod was needed to neatly close up the trenches.  Our turfgrass maintenance team at Greystone has been hoping to have time to construct a bentgrass nursery on the property for a few years now.   This year, we were able to make it happen. 

We began prepping this area behind the grey tee on #16 for seed in mid-September.  The first step was to apply a non-selective herbicide (Round-up) to the existing turf.  We then stripped and removed the dead sod and began importing soil.  We used 83 tons of greens construction mix as the root medium at a cost of about $49/ton.  The mix we chose consisted of 80% sand and 20% sphagnum peat moss and is identical to the mix that supports the bentgrass on all 19 putting greens at Greystone. 

The mix was then graded, leveled and rolled.  We dimpled the mix with the knobby tires on one of our machines to create a seed bed.  We then seeded the nursery with Penncross creeping bentgrass, to match the existing stand, in two directions, applied starter fertilizer, Milorganite, gypsum and calcium.  The nursery was seeded on September 19, 2012 and this photo was taken 6 days later.  If you squint, you can see the new bentgrass seedlings emerging from the soil!

This photo was taken yesterday after the turf blanket was pulled off and the nursery was mowed.  While working on  this nursery, We fielded many nervous questions from our customers concerned that we were constructing a new tee!  I am sure many will be relieved to know this 250+ yard shot will not be part of the par three #16!

With this blanket in place once again, soil temperatures can remain 9-15 degrees warmer than ambient temperatures.   This will help the nursery get a jump start on the growing season this spring.