The Trouble with Collars

One of my first challenges upon arriving was the state of the collars, to that I mean they were nearly non existent. The rest of the golf course was in desperate need of TLC, including nearly half the greens having significant damage and were virtually unplayable. I set about the task of recovering as much of the golf course I could during the short spring, before the onslaught of mother natures harrowing summer, and had to be content with a more simple approach to our collars. Summer came, and for the most part the course came through unscathed, with the exception of the collars. They were beaten down once again, on some greens there was total devastation. Was this merely an act of God, or was there some unknown force at work. That was the mystery I set about to uncover last fall.

It appeared that nothing would grow in the damages areas, despite repeated seeding efforts with multiple varieties of turf. We began with a quick operation of seeding bentgrass that involved lightly spiking, seeding, and then topdressing the collars. When, after 2 weeks, there was no germination, we moved to a more aggressive approach of ninja tine aerating, then slit seeding with bentgrass and dragging the collars. When this proved fruitless we switched varieties and attempted to slit seed bluegrass into the affected areas, being comparable to bentrgass in its playability of such an area. This too proved to be of no avail. As a last ditch hail marry, we attempted to seed rye grass, a less worthy playing surface, but often quick to germinate, establish, and can be hardy. We performed this operation with a aeravator, a vibrating solid tine aerator with a seed drum on top that virtually drills the seed into the soil, an operation normally only reserved for the rough. Surely this nuclear option would restore the collars, but alas it did not, and even more curios, the native Poa Annua that resided in these areas was not germinating, a variety that creates a prolific seed bed and will generally invade any open soil found on a golf course in the fall.

Having thrown the proverbial kitchen sink at the collars without success, we began to theorize the reason for this oddity. We found through soil testing that the collars were 93%-94% sand, the greens by comparison are 82%-85% sand at the same depth. This high ratio of sand can explain the reason for there decline year after year, as moisture would not be able to remain in the root zone as long. The greens may be happy with the moisture content after a nights irrigation, while the collars would be lacking. This gave us an explanation as to the the decline, but not to the reason of the lack of seed germination. The only logical explanation is a chemical one, some point in the past a chemical, most likely a pre-emergent for the suppression of weeds, was applied, and likely at a rate that exceeded recommendations. This would cause a barrier that would prevent any seed from germinating until microbial activity had broken down this chemical.

Now that I had solid facts as to the reason for the decline, and a strong theory for the delayed recovery, all that was left was to make a plan to overcome both obstacles once spring was upon us. For the latter, that was simple, an application of activated charcoal is to be made as soon as the weather breaks and the turf begins to green up. Activated Charcoal will neutralize any residual chemical found in the soil, a simple application that will start us on the right foot. The former is also easily solved, although a much more intensive, and time consuming process. The challenge is to allow moisture to move freely through the profile, preventing wet wilt and damage from mowers, but also slow it enough to allow moisture to be retained in the root zone at the same rate as the greens.

The plan is such, we will perform the normal aeration of the greens and collars this spring, beginning by topdressing the greens, Deep tine aerating to a depth of 8" with a 1" solid tine, this will aid in water moving freely through the profile. Once that is complete, we will follow it up with a 1/8" coring tine to remove thatch from the top 3", and then drag the sand into the holes created by the deep and coring tines. The thatch will break away and can be easily blown off after the holes are filled. Once this operation is completed, which will create a very nice seed bed in the collars, we will solid tine aerate the collars with 3/4" tines to a depth of 3". This will create our "moisture retention" zone, we will then topdress the collars with a mushroom compost, a product I have used in the past with great success, and then brush the compost in the holes. After that we will verticut and seed the collars with bentgrass.

Mushroom compost is a high quality compost that aids in creating organic matter and moisture retention in the soil. It also has a small amount of Nitrogen in it that is broken down over time and provides continues nutrients in the rootzone. This operation will be time consuming and labor intensive but will give us the best chance at re-establishing the collars. The plan is set, and all we need to do is wait for the weather to break.