Mariani Landscape

My first presentation at Mariani Landscape. This is a fresh start for my family and I. This opportunity has provided me more time to spend with my family and to enjoy what I do best, growing and maintain high quality Turf.

BMW Success!

The BMW was a success and I am relieved and proud of my teammates for a wonderful product they put out for the top 70 players in the world. Their was a lot of sacrifice and hard work that was put into this tournament and it was well worth it in the end. It’s now time to put the golf course back in shape for our members and like always theirs more work ahead of us!

Update

It has been a long time since I've done a blog. Last time I did one I was still in school at Penn State. A lot has changed and a lot of success and also fails. But whats life without fails? Nine years has gone by and I am still currently at Medinah Country Club now as the Course #3 Superintendent where the 2012 Ryder Cup was held successfully by the way and currently the 2019 BMW Championship this August. I got married in 2017, bought a house, and now just had my first baby boy a few days ago. Guess now I'm consider a family man. Very exciting/nerve racking and another adventure to start. I look back the last nine years and things are defiantly different for the good of course and just life in general. I work under a new Director of Agronomy at the club Steve Cook. All 3 golf courses have been renovated and property improvements have begun. The economy has changed drastically to the point where it is extremely difficult to fine help. Not like how it use to be where you have guys just walk up to the door and ask if were hiring or not. Wages are high everywhere where its hard to compete and guys are just not willing to work for low wage and to wake up at 4am at night to mow grass. To me where you have to wake up before five its still night.

Chicago District Golf Association

The Chicago District Golf Association (CDGA) is a non-profit organization that represents member clubs and individual golfers from Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan. It was founded on March 18, 1914 with the purpose to promote amateur golf in the mid-west. This establishment holds over 90,000 members and has 400 member clubs making it one of the largest/oldest golf associations in the U.S. This association is made up of directors known as “Blue Coats” and they spend a huge amount of time each year, giving services and time to people. CDGA services and the benefits that come with the association are to the member clubs and individual golfers at the facilities. It’s run by 17 personnel and is held at the Midwest Golf House Complex in Lemont, Ill. The CDGA handles thousand of studies through the year from personal visits, email when dealing with rulings, tournament set-up, information on places to play, and greens keeping practices. The CDGA have other additional services and Turfgrass experts on staff, led by Dr. Derek Settle.
CDGA Services include:
• Handicap Program
• Course Rating & Measuring Program
• Tournament Program
• Sunshine Through Golf Foundation
• Three-hole Sunshine Course
• Chicago District Golfer Magazine
• Education Program
• Turfgrass Research Program
• Scorecard E-Newsletter
• Keeper of Records
The Chicago District Golf Association is a great networking experience for anyone in the turf industry. It provides adequate information and can help turf managers with their career pursuit. I look forward to gaining networking connections from Chicago through the six months I’m there on my internship at Medinah Country Club.

Importance of Organic Matter

Why use organic matter in greens instead of to using straight sand? Using straight sand, can be difficult for a grow in, because it cannot hold nutrients well and the water drains too fast for the grass to utilize it. The carbon structure of organic matter is made of a ring structure that is harder to break down by microbes. It has great surface area, a high amount of negative charge, and it holds water very well. It can result in a poor growing environment when you have too much organic matter because your percolation rate may decrease. What can you do to remove or control the buildup of organic matter is to pulling cores or dilute with an aggressive topdressing program.
In top soil, organic matter helps many factors of the growing medium. These include:

• Increased CEC
• Increased aggregate formation(structure)
• Energy for microbe development
• Heat absorption due to its dark color
• Micronutrients can be present.

Organic matter is a source of carbon, but addition, organic matter will affect the carbon to nitrogen ratio; the ideal ration being 30:1. So when carbon starts to decrease, the available nitrogen levels start to increase again. Nitrogen is important because microbes need it to survive and to break down the OM.
Raw clippings from grass cuttings are a source of organic matter. The clippings consist of 75% water and 25% dry mater. The dry matter contains carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. The ash alone contains the nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, and sulfur. Many other factors that the raw material holds include 60% carbohydrates, and other complex molecules including 10% protein and 5% fats.
By using organic matter, the percolation rate on your greens might decrease and increase your water-holding capacity. By having too much organic matter this may cause compaction to your greens. The golf course then may aerify their greens or be concentrated with top-dressing.

Norway Spruce

The Norway spruce belongs to the family Pinaceae. Spruces are symmetrical and are conical trees. In this family alone there are about forty different specimens. This report will explain the growth, culture, diseases and insects the plant may get, some propagation techniques and the landscape uses it has to offer.

The Norway spruce can grow from forty to sixty feet high and have a spread of twenty five to thirty feet. The zone it can survive in between three to eight. The bark on the Norway when it is young is thin, but can become thin with gray brown flaking scales on the bark off older trees. It’s pyramidal with pendulous branches. The fruit are cylindrical cones can get to a purple or green color when young. Foliage around the medium grade of the tree and the leaf color it offers is bright green to a purplish color when maturing. A culture it has to live in order for it to survive is moist, sandy, acidic, well drained soils but can survive in most soils around the specific zones. This plant prefers the cold climate and should be pruned in the spring. Examples of select diseases and insects that affect spruces include red spider, spruce gall aphid, bud worm, and borers. The Norway Spruce are often used as windbreaks and are used a lot for large scale landscaping such as parks, golf courses, highways, and public buildings. One of the benefits of propagating Spruces is that the seeds germinate without pretreatment and can be directly sown in to the grown. Root pruning is optional and should be performed between from November to January.

The Norway spruce can be beneficial for decorative purposes and for weather preventative cases such as wind-breakers. Planter’s can benefit from this because they are not pretreated and can be directly sown in the grown and root pruning is optional so there is less maintenance.

This report mentions important facts about the plant that landscapers can use to their advantage. They will also learn some background information about the plant including where it came from and what zones it can be found in and survivein.

Success

In order to be successful in the turfgrass management industry, you have to be a good communicator. What that means is being able to communicate to your crew members for what needs to be done and to communicate to the people who just play golf and decide rather you should have this piece of equipment or not. In this business, you really don't have to be that great at growing grass. What really moves you up in the rank to be a superintendent is communicating well to the right people. About 10 percent of the industry is growing grass the other 90 percent is communication. I have met some people through the years that were very good at communicating and some that needed to work on it. Also being a good communicator allows you to accomplish a lot more tasks on the golf course because of the organization with your crew and the way you treat them. When you communicate to others, you expand your network of people and can go big in your career and to ask for assistance if say you're having trouble identifying a disease or whats a good product to spray for dollar spot etc.. In my experiences when working on a golf course, I tended to work harder when my employer treated me with respect and that's a trait on good communication skills.