Hello everyone, I wanted to take a moment and give you all some updates of what to expect the coming weeks at Bentwater concerning the turf.  With the cooler temperatures upon us its a great time to get out and enjoy your courses, but it is also an important time for us to prepare the courses for the winter ahead.  With shorter days and cooler temperatures the turf will start to slow down the overall growth until we go dormant.  Once we are dormant the plant will not put on new leaf tissue so it is imperative for us to start slowly coming up in height of cut on greens, tees and fairways.  Yes, this will mean the greens will slow down just a bit as we head into our first frost, but it is imperative to have our greens healthy heading into the dormant season.  We applied an organic fertilizer to Miller greens yesterday and will apply the same greens grade fertilizer on Grand Pines today and Weiskopf tomorrow.  This will allow the plant to store carbohydrates for the fall and winter.  This is like adding fuel to plant.  As we experience warm ups and cool downs this requires energy stored in the plant to green up.  I know this is an unpopular thing to do because prior to our first frost the greens speeds will slow down.  We will do all we can to roll more often to keep them at an acceptable speed, but please realize we are doing this to protect our greatest asset, which are our putting greens for the winter.  The healthier the plant is going into winter, the healthier we are coming out of winter and into spring green up.  The same goes for fairways and tees.  I realize that this raising of height of cut will not effect the play of the golf course, but again, we must keep as much leaf tissue on the plant heading into the winter as possible.  Please spread the word, that although the green speeds may slow down slightly over the next month, it is for the overall health of the plant that we must do this.  Again,  we will roll as much as we can to keep the greens at an acceptable pace.

Donny Latham