Removing the Zoysia Grass in the Fairways and Collars of the Dye Course

When the Dye Course closes for it's annual early summer aerification May 14th thru 24th, one of the many projects we will be undertaking is removing the stray Zoysia grass that has made its way into the fairways and collars.  The contamination has occurred through basically two means, encroachment and contamination by movement of aerification cores.  This process was last completed in the fairways in 2006 and the greens collars were last completed in 2010.

 

The process is rather slow, in that the areas of unwanted Zoysia are first sprayed with a non-selective herbicide, Roundup, then are allowed to sit to allow the herbicide to begin to kill the unwanted Zoysia.  After approximately one week after the first application, a second application of Roundup is made to ensure a thorough kill.  Again, we will wait 2 to 3 days to allow the herbicide to be taken up by the Zoysia and then we will begin the process of cutting out the dead areas of turf and replacing it with sod from both the driving range fairway and a local sod farm.  

The sod that is taken from the driving range fairway will be utilized in areas close to the greens to help minimize the disturbance of play around the greens.  Sod that is brought in from the farm is grown about twice as tall as what we mow our fairways and approaches and will take a few weeks to be trained down and tightened up to meet our needs.  The sod from the farm will be used in areas of the fairway and approach away from the greens complexes.  

The whole process should last about six weeks from the first application of Roundup till we finish laying the sod.  The first application of roundup is scheduled to be applied May 7th. The photos illustrate how the turf will look a few days following the application of Round up.  These were taken in 2006 and we can expect to see these types of spots about 5 to 6 days following application.  As these areas begin to go off color and die, we will be implementing a local rule that all of these areas should be considered GUR and played as such.