Page 10 - Gallery May Newsletter 2021

A G R O N O M Y U P D A T E

F R O M

N O A H G E S S L E R

As the season winds down, the busy season for the golf courses begin. This starts with our
greens aerification and takes us through the summer with tee, fairway and rough

aerification and concludes with overseeding in the fall. Aerification is a critical part of
turfgrass health and last spring and summer being anything but normal meant we were

not able to complete this process in some areas, and caused us to have to modify the
process in others.

Every year we conduct a very specific kind of test on our greens to help us determine how
much and how frequent to aerify. This year we will resume our two main aerification

events, one in spring and the other as part of the overseed closure in the fall. Those are
the optimal times to aerify bentgrass in order to avoid the extreme heat of summer. Our
goal is a total of at least twenty percent displacement for the year, which will be

accomplished with these two main events and some small events during the summer.
Tees, fairways and roughs were not aerified last year and this process will resume this

year. We will aim to aerifiy these areas almost non-stop all summer long to catch up on
relieving compaction throughout the courses.

We will begin our summer closures on May 17 this year. The first closures will be focusing
on greens and the later closures we will move to the other areas. With one exception, we

will be on a two week rotation of closing, alternating between the two courses. The South
course will close for a full month during June as it is slated to be the first course
overseeded this fall and this will allow us to get a jump on our summer transition.

In addition, we will be adding dates throughout the summer where we will offer all 36
holes. These dates will be made available as we progress through the summer. We will fit

those dates in where it allows for access to both courses while still allowing us to continue
our summer projects.

This leads us to our fall overseeding which is scheduled similarly to last year. This year we
will again be aiming to do the bulk of the seeding in the best weather window at the end of

September and early October.In order to accomplish this we will have a ten day period
when both golf courses will be closed. This will also help us have both courses open by
November 1 and also be able to allow carts off paths earlier in the new season.