Dry, Trampled Putting Green

Lukey and I played on the new putting green a couple of days early last week.  We had a great time and were looking forward to spending time "Pitching and Putting" more often.  Unfortunately, the putting green took a bit of a nosedive so we haven't been using the putting green at all.  Well...  we haven't been using the putting green for golf.  I've been busy working on trying to revive the new putting green.

In order to choose the right remedy, I needed to figure out what went wrong.  This was a bit of a problem because I really only had a bunch of guesses on what went wrong.  Let's list them...

1.  We used the putting green too soon before the new grass had time to mature and become hardier.  

2.  Maybe my new putting green had a disease.

3.  Perhaps I didn't keep it moist enough once we started using it.

4.  Or the opposite...  perhaps I had some root rot and I had been watering it too much.  

5.  Maybe the pH wasn't right for this type of grass.

6.  Maybe the soil wasn't absorbing water like it should so the roots weren't getting the water or nutrients they need.  

7.  Maybe the clipped grass from mowing was choking the green.  

So, where do I start?  I did some additional research.  

It appears as though the new grass was not mature enough for us to be playing on it just yet.  Actually, according to what I read, I should have planted this green last fall if we intended to use it this summer.  Unfortunately, I only planted it a few short weeks ago.  We definitely trampled new grass that was still far too delicate so that was the first problem. 

I think ruled out disease so that was good news.  It is really too early to tell for sure but I do not see any signs of disease.

It was hard to tell if the green was too dry or getting too much water.  As I thought about the days that Lukey and I played on the green, I realized that the green wasn't getting any mid-day watering.  Newly planted Bentgrass could really use 5-7 waterings a day though!  Once it matures 2-3 times a day is fine but this was not yet mature grass.  Chances are good that the green wasn't getting enough water.

I wasn't sure about the pH because I had never tested it so I started searching for a soil tester.  I found one on Amazon and ordered it.  Unfortunately, it would not arrive for a few days so I had to continue my little guessing game until it arrived.  

It is possible that the soil was too compacted and it was not absorbing enough water.  This meant I needed to aerate the green.  Yesterday morning I punctured about a million holes into the green while I wait for a liquid aerating solution to arrive.  The liquid solution will add bacteria to the soil which will loosen it up and allow it to take water more efficiently.  Manually aerating the relatively small green was brutal!

I'm still not sure about the clipped grass from mowing.  I definitely had a lot of clipped grass matted to the ground that was dying and turning brown.  Trying to rake this out, however, also pulled out a bunch of this new, not yet matured grass too.  If the grass was more mature, I likely would not have had any problems with this.  Unfortunately, this grass was still in a delicate stage and the clippings from mowing could have choked the lawn.  

The soil tester arrived yesterday.  I immediately went out to test the green.  The pH was in a good place.  For this type of grass, Penncross Bentgrass, it needs to be in the 5.5-6.5 range.  I've tested it a few times now and it is consistently in the 6.2-6.4 range so that is good.  After manually aerating the green and more watering, the pH has dropped to 6.2 so that is showing improvement.  I also have some nitrogen-rich Turf Builder on hand which should help with keeping it in the correct range if the pH increases above 6.5.  

As you can see in the first photo, at top, the soil initially tested as too dry but I started watering it more often again and now the moisture level is testing as good.  The aerating probably helped as well.  I'm going to need to keep the green moist through the day.  Letting it get too dry is a problem especially on sunny, hot days.  I definitely skimped on watering on those sunny days that Lukey and I played golf.  This was a terrible, terrible thing to do with a less-than-a-month old putting green.  Walking on it all day only abused the new grass even more.  

I believe I am again on the path to a nice looking green.  Unfortunately, we'll need to stay off the green for a bit.  The short story on what went wrong with the new putting green is it became too dry and we trampled it...  almost to death!