Keep Your Fingers Crossed.

Short update.  Luckily the snow has been slowly accumulating and any little amount we get moves us further away from the "death zone" (go HERE for explanation).  The forecast is still for rain with above freezing temperatures for the low on Friday which is not great but the good news is it appears to be very short lived since for Saturday the forecast high is -12.  I know I've expressed my displeasure with November before and this year is doing nothing to change my attitude.  I was unable to put the tarp back on #9 mostly because the initial snow never melted and I wasn't to thrilled about blowing it off.

On Monday, the forecast was periods of rain Thursday and Friday with above freezing temperatures over night.  I watched the weather and had that forecast stayed the same I would have started snow blowing the green surfaces on Tuesday.   However, snow overnight on Monday and period of rain changing to 60% showers on Thursday and just rain for Friday (not periods of rain, when they say that experience tells me its going to pour!) have made snow blowing greens less likely.  Also, compounded by the fact that it is snowing right now, I am hopeful we will have enough of a snow cover to be able to absorb any moisture in the form of rain without creating surface ice.....we'll see if that is the case in about 48 hours.

First draft of budget is done and once Novembers numbers are in I'll be able to take a closer look at where time and money was spent.  Already, I know there was 1200 less staff hours in my department this year versus 2013.  I'll take a closer look and let you know what was different this year.

I thought it would be fun to post pictures of the wildlife that is around the golf course when there is no play.  I bought a trail/game camera on sale this fall and put it up in various spots.  I had a fair amount of deer and elk pictures but none were great to I set the camera up near 2 green on a heavily traveled game trail just over the bank.  Some pr*ck stole it!  I'm obviously naive or people are jerks...or both!  Anyways, the only wild life out of the ordinary for us is these guys:

Dudes, go south!

The fact these geese are sticking around is bugging me.  Hopefully, it's not because they think the snow is going to melt and more because of the poor flying weather (?).  We watched a coyote take a run at this flock and he struck out.  I like them it's too bad they are messy.

Ketchup....Catch up?

.....meaningful titles are sometimes hard to come by.  Anyways, here's what's been happening over the past couple days.  Last weekends forecast was pretty much on the nose regarding snow and cold.  I went out on Sunday and put down the tarps and Enkamat before the weather hit but had to tweak the process a bit.  Like I mentioned before, since we were unable to afford more Enkamat, I had planned to split it up amongst the greens that I think may need it the most.  The new tarp for #15 green scared me because it is so 'impermeable-like" (remember anoixia? go HERE) so I used the Enkamat to cover close to 80% of the green to maintain an air gap before rolling out the new tarp.  The remaining Enkamat was only able to cover a little less than 2/3's of #7 green (which is where the other impermeable tarp is located).  So, obviously, the upper putting green, the back of #9 green and the lower tier of #6 green do not have any Enkamat.  This is too bad since the condition of these surfaces in the spring were pretty good and  I think that was partly due to the Enkamat.

The one unfortunate part with the arrival of winter at the beginning of the week was the wind that preceded the system.  I staple the tarps to the ground and generally add extra on the side of any edge facing the prevailing wind.  The wind last Sunday night was the dreaded "backwards wind" which meant it blew completely opposite to the way it normals comes.  The end result was the semi-permeable tarp on #9 blew off.  I've decided not to remove the snow from the green and expose it to all the predicted cold temperatures.  I'll try to fix the tarp later.

I've mostly been inside during the mornings either reviewing expenses or looking into ideas I've had during the summer but didn't have time to investigate (for example, I think I've found a way to use my phones GPS and Google Maps to record and store in the "cloud" the fertilizer and/or chemical applications we make during the season.  With that information we can be somewhat more accurate with our record keeping...something that may be a requirement in the ever changing "landscape" of pesticide regulations.)  The rest of the day I continue to prepare equipment or areas of the golf course for winter.

One more thing.   During the summer when I received positive comments about the condition of the course I would, at some point during the conversation, say something like "it's been a good year to grow grass" or something along that line.   I wasn't trying to be modest but I was instead making an observation.  An article written by an agronomist from the USGA Green Section comments on course conditions as they relate to weather.  To be fair the article seems more to be referencing an apparent habit of players to equate good conditions with good weather while ignoring the importance of a superintendent and blaming the superintendent entirely for poor conditions while completely disregarding the impact of bad weather.  Thankfully, to this point in time, that has never been a huge problem at this club for me.  What I like about the article is the last two paragraphs which have a simple math equation that can be used to sum up course conditions in a succinct manner.  Again, the gist of the article isn't overly applicable to our/my situation but it is some food for thought.  Take a look HERE to read it.

Post Season Preparedness and Activities

As fall weather goes this year has been in the top 5.  Since the last day of play there has been half dozen or so frost days and only a few rainy days with most of those occurring within the last week.  Since its only been me for the last 2 weeks the nice weather has made it easy to get things buttoned up with the only thing left to do is lay out the tarps.  With respect to the tarps I had to replace #7 old tarp since it was badly torn and had numerous holes.  Unfortunately, that means there was no money to buy more Enkamat (go HERE for reminder) which is disappointing since I've been pleased with the outcome where I've used Enkamat under the tarps.  I may divide up whatever Enkamat we have to half-ass cover areas on the greens under the tarps; especially under impermeable tarps.

The mild fall has meant a bit more disease popping up on fairways, even on those fairways I treated.

Microdochium Patch, 14 Fwy

I would guess that the disease began developing before I sprayed but I am comfortable that most fairways were treated before the disease really took hold as it obviously has in the preceding picture.  Untreated fairways are definitely showing disease but they always do.  Timing the sprays is tricky and I've talked about it before (go HERE) but time constraints, staffing, costs of the chemical, and the mode of action of the treatment all mean I have to make an somewhat educated guess when the spray has to go down.  As it stands now this season is shaping up as a high disease pressure year; especially if we get a permanent snow cover before the ground has time to freeze (and personally when it comes to that I like unfrozen ground since water from any winter rain will soak in versus freeze into a ice sheet).

For the fall sprays I did my usual random experiments comparing different chemicals and different rates on certain fairways. 

18 Fwy: Instrata vs Trilogy

8 Fwy: Different Application Rates

By not spraying the entire fairway on certain holes I can compare chemical efficacy in relation to disease occurrence on non-treated areas.  This year I also picked spots on some fairways (1,10,12,13) where I did not spray to monitor efficacy and to get people appreciating or understanding the necessity of winter treatments.  To make it fun I choose a few of the fairways and deliberately left a particular geometrical shape so as to catch your eyes and deflect criticisms from other "turfies" who may think I just zoned out and made a mistake.  Just one more reason to anticipate next golf season!

Again with respect to the weather most areas had time to do some catch up on root mass since I wasn't mowing and your weren't playing (Go HERE for deep tine and root review)

Token End of Season Root Pict to Make me Sleep Better

Other greens are always the same this time of year and always amaze the hell out of me each spring and fall or whenever they make it through the stress with surviving grass.

#2 Green after Deep Tine, Antithesis of Previous Photo

I am pretty sure I can grow roots as this picture shows:

10 inches of  Poa Roots

This is a plug I took from the collar around a green where we bury hollow sleeves used to hold up the fence posts around select greens.  This picture shows what aeration can do if you commit.  I could talk tonnes about the potential this picture shows but the panicky looks I get when I say we will be pulling a half inch core three to four inches deep tells me support would be hard to come by (believe or not but there are machines which can remove a "core" that big and deep and then refill with sand all at the same time!).

I suspect my next post will involve numbers or something like that since we are entering the fantasy/planning stages of next years budget.