Fairway Dry Spots

In a "typical" year, we apply chemicals called wetting agents to the fairways, tees, and greens to prevent a condition called localized dry spots (LDS).  With this year not being very typical, and due to some sprayer malfunctions we were unable to apply the wetting agents to the fairways before the condition developed.  Once the LDS sets in, it can be very difficult to get the soil wet again.  Our hope was that the rain we received last week would help alleviate the problems but it didn't.

This picture of the morning dew shows the polka dotted pattern that the dry spots have made on #1 Fairway.  The dots that you see are areas where dew was unable to form because of the dry soil, an evenly moist soil will have consistent dew on the grass.  (It also shows part of our cure for the problem.)

It's a little difficult to see in the picture, but if you look closely at these two plugs taken just inches apart from each other, you can see that the plug on the left is bone dry and just crumbles when it comes out of the ground, and the plug on the right is evenly moist and holds together.  The one on the right is how it should look.

So far these areas have not wilted or died, but if we don't do anything to get the soil to accept water before the summer heats up we could be looking at fairways that are dotted with brown spots.  This week you will notice that we are aerifying selected fairway areas with solid tines, these are the areas that have LDS, and the holes are the first step to fixing the problem.  Next, we will spray a wetting agent that is specifically for curing dry spots over the holes and then the areas will be watered heavily.  This process will get the dry spots to take water and allow our preventative wetting agent applications to to their job.