Look! I see Grass!

Slowly, very slowly the snow is disappearing from around the course.  Those greens that I sped up the melt on are all open and appeared to have wintered well.  Realistically, an official "we are good" comment won't come until I start to see some growth but I am in an optimistic mood.  I still haven't removed the tarp on 15 green but I am at the mop up stage and the tarp should be off soon.  I did get 7 Green cleaned off and was able to look under the tarp and saw how it wintered.

7 Green 

Similar to last year (go HERE) I messed around with the Enkamat product and saw positive results.  In the picture above the upper left corner of the green was covered with just an ice shield alone while the obviously greener turf was covered with both Enkamat and ice shield.  As I've said in earlier posts we didn't really have any ice this year so the ice shield wasn't necessarily required but based on this picture it would be tough to ignore the benefits of the Enkamat.

If you remember last fall I also used Enkamat under the semi-permeable tarp on 6 green ( go HERE for reminder) and, as luck would have it, the results were similar.

6 Green

As usual, the picture somewhat distorts how the turf really appears but trust me when I say it wintered well.  Aside from trying to give the weak part of this green a head start I also wanted to see the impact of the Enkamat in conditions other than under an impermeable (i.e. ice, slush, and water).  Again, it's tough to ignore the apparent benefits.

One final experiment I did with the Enkamat was using it directly on a green surface without any cover to see if results were similar to last year.  The green was 9 but it still has snow so we'll have to wait to see what has occurred.

For the next week or so I will shuffle tarps around to those greens which appear slow to get going and start to clean up a few loose ends in anticipation of the Spring Volunteer Clean-Up and, dare I say, opening!

A Quick and Dirty Spring Update....Revised

(Oops! I accidentally posted before I was finished writing and editing.  Read this one and forget anything you may have seen earlier with the same title)

The last couple of weeks have seen more and more snow melt allowing me to access more areas.  I am doing the usual messing around and trying to speed the snow melt by spreading either straight sand or other materials on select greens and miscellaneous areas.  We are lucky this year since ice appears to have never developed on any greens surfaces.  The greens which I have chosen to melt snow are more on the shadey side or, for whatever reason, have more snow than typical.  Why do some greens have more snow?  I referenced a situation two years ago when comparing 12 green and 13 green snow pack.  You can go HERE for my unproven theory.  After 6 days I can tell you that by using a medium rate of dark organic fertilizer there was conservatively 50% more snow melt versus areas left "au naturel".  Take a look:

After 1 Day

After 2 Days

After 2 days the snow dropped about 3" (for both those days overnight lows were -10 C and daytime highs were +6...but nice and sunny).  As of today, on #6 green for example, there is 5 to 6 inches on the front shadey portion of the green while the middle/back still has almost 10".  A slow sustained melt is nice. There seems to be only a limited amount of moisture on the green surface and despite the overnight lows of -10 C there still must be enough insulating properties remaining in the snow as the moisture isn't freezing on the surface overnight.  It's funny how these same conditions would be the kiss of death in December or January but now it's OK since the wet surface seems to slowly thawing the subsurface (I guess as the snow pack get more and more funky warm air temperatures are probably getting to the ground as well).  But elsewhere:

The "hole" left #11 Fwy

It's been a few years since we have to deal with this but, as mentioned in older posts, the ground is frozen so any moisture from melting snow will run to low areas and sit there until the ground thaws.    One other area of note when it comes to water is 15 green.  One of reason we tarp 15 is because of this:

Water "Thundering" off 15 G

The whole green slopes right to left and both the front and back slope towards the swail in the middle, left of the green.  Compounding the water problem on 15 green is the huge bank on the right side.  As a result, melting snow always causes water to puddle on this green. Obviously the more water that runs off the green the less the chance ice will develop and the less chipping I will have to do.  I am hoping another week will have the snow to a manageable level and then we can get the tarp off.  It's a huge job for 2 guys (go HERE) to do in a day so it would be an astronomical job for one guy....me!  As usual, stay tuned to find out what happens!