Turf School Day Four

Today was our first Monday of class. We survived the weekend that was filled with watching playoff football.
Today we had our irrigation class. We talked about the pressure of the irrigation system and what it is affected by. We talked about static and dynamic pressure. Static pressure is the amount of pressure in the system when it is not in use. Dynamic pressure is the amount of pressure the system has when it is in use. Dynamic pressure is affected by elevation, how far the water has to travel, and friction loss in the pipe.
After our irrigation class we had our introduction to soils 2. This class is going to be very informative. In place of a final exam we will need to develop a fertility program for our future course.
We ended the day with our stress physiology course. We discussed Summer Bentgrass Decline and what we as turf managers can do to improve turf quality during the heat of the summer.

Turf School Day Three

Friday is always a good day in turf school. Today we had class with Golf Course Architect Stephen Kay. We had two classes together, the first was Golf Course Construction II and the second was History of Golf Course Design. Both of the classes were very enjoyable.
Our third class was Ornamental Plant Pathogens. We talked about viruses and bacteria and how to prevent/cure them in planting situations. We discussed problems on herbacious flowers and other plant material.

Turf School Day Two

Today was our first full day. We started the day with Landscape Plants and Ornamental Grasses. The Landscape Plants class covered and will continue to cover evergreen trees and shrubs. The Ornamental Grasses class covered 20 different Ornamental Grasses. It is going to be a short course with an identification quiz and a written final.
After lunch we had our introduction to our Case Study class. We got into groups and each group was given a topic to research and present in the coming weeks.

Back to School

Well today was our first day back at class in the Rutgers Two Year Turf Management Program. We started the day off with a short orientation meeting, followed by two classes.
Our first class of year two was on budgeting. We discussed what a budget was. It is a plan for the year. We also examined a few budgets and talked about what you can conclude by looking at them. How the budget varience (both under and over) allows for interpretation on different situations that may have been present during the past years.
Our second class of the day was on irrigation. We discussed sources for irrigation water and how to determine if a source is suitable. The source should be sufficient in quantity, quality, and cost. We also examined methods to determine how much water is required to meet the needs of the plant, based on evapotranspiration. Evapotranspiration is effected by sunlight, temperature, humidity, and wind.
It was a good first day, and should be a good term. We gained two new classmates, they attended the Fall 2009 session and are finishing with us... and we lost three of our classmates

Selling food and interviewing for Jobs

Well it has been two months since my last post and a lot has changed...

First, of all I am singing in the Hymns of Thanksgiving with my dad.

Second, I am becoming a proficient salesman in the food storage industry.

Third, I got a few scholarships for college.

Fourth, I have had two interviews with the Northern California Golf Association for a position in a superintendent training porgram. The interview was for a position at Cypress Point in Monterey California. Cypress Point is rated as the fourth best course in the United States by Golf Digest.

Now that you know what is going on, I will put up some pictures of my adventures.

This last picture I took tonight at Grandma's House. She was hosting the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers get together at her house. She broke out the "fine" china and nice silverware for the gathering. She also made some delicious pumpkin cheesecake... I had a piece, but I used a normal plate and normal fork.

Monthly Update:

Well it has been about 1.5 months since my last post, and since my dad told me to update the blog, i will.

There has not been too much going on lately. The high points have been traveling to Columbia, SC to see a football game, Lisa and Ryan, and watching the bYu game.

Here are some pictures from work. The quality is poor, because I took the pictures with my cell phone. Below each picture is a description of what is shown.

This is a picture of the 5th green. We lost about 45% of the turf on the green due to the bacterial wilt. About 2 weeks ago we aerified the greens, the dimple tined them, then seeded them, then topdressed them, then seeded them again, then sliced them with a sand pro, and finally we fertilized the greens and started to apply large amounts of water... 3 minutes per sprinkler each hour.

This photo show how bad the 13th green is. This picture was taken about one week after the seeding process.
This photo was taken the night of the first mowing of the recently seeded greens. The picture was taken to show what is suspected to be the bacterial wilt still active on the greens. There are areas like this on several greens. We had the tedious seeding process, but we DID NOT do anything to take care of or kill the bacteria in the soil. Hopefully the greens grow in and survive until the tournament next year.
My roommate Chris, he was really excited to be mowing the greens again at night. We stopped mowing them for about 2 weeks while they were growing in. This was the first cut on the 7th green.

This is the first cut on the 1st green. I mowed this green for the first time at .240".

This is the wet spot I mowed yesterday and received a "double bogey" for my damage. The worst spot is in the bottom of the photo and it is of green sand we threw out to cover the "sludge" that rose to the surface because I mowed over the area.

One Tough Decision

I had recently applied for a job at TPC Summerlin, in west Las Vegas. I got a call on saturday afternoon for an interview. During the interview I was told how they had narrowed the candidates to two people. They were including me and enlarging it to three people.
The job sounded great, the pay was great, the course was great, the boss was great, but the schedule was not great. I would work from Thursday to Monday every week....8 hours on Saturday and 8 hours on Sunday. I tried to get every other weekend off or get the Sunday Shift shortened, but no luck.
So I researched church schedules in the area and found a single's ward that met at 1:30, I thought this would work out great. I was later offered the position and verbally accepted. After accepting the position, someting did not feel right. I thought about missing church, or only making it to part of church each Sunday and decided I needed to practice what I had been taught all my life. I decided to decline the job. I now feel good about this decision.