This was going to be titled Smurf Tees and Albino Praying Mantis, but T.W.I.T, or this week in turf, just came off the tongue better.
It's hard for me to believe that kids growing up today don't have the smurfs in their lives. I guess they do have those horrible movies that came out, but those were just strange, but I digress. We've had a struggle with a handful of tees this year and instead or re-sodding them, we are seeding them. To help keep the seed bed cool and moist we are using a type of hydro mulch that you can spray out or just apply over the top. In this case we are just applying over the top. With temperatures increasing, it's hard to keep the seed bed moist and I really hope this is the ticket. I had a customer ask me today if it'll work and I'd like to think that since it's been done, it will, but...
In other news, I found this praying mantis on the course Thursday and it sent me to google looking up a white praying mantis. From what I can best determine, it is a normal praying mantis, but praying mantis's molt several times and after molting they appear white for a period of time. Aside from being one of the cooler looking insects, they are known to eat June bugs (other flying insects too) which morph into white grubs. As some remember we've had a problem with skunks, raccoons and crows digging for white grubs. I'll take all the help I can get.
Lastly we have begun coring preparation by doing two practice greens on Wednesday. It's three weeks out, but I don't like surprises. We'll tweak what we did this week next week and hopefully we'll be dialed in for the 2nd of August.
