It's the last week of October and I've officially wrapped up the fall treatments today by treating the last fairways on my list. The last 3 weeks have been very wet (over 100 mm of rain since the start of the month) which has made timing the treatments tricky. Rain events after the treatments may have an impact on efficacy but we'll have to wait and see next spring. With respect to the treatments on the greens my last spray was this past Sunday and I have one more spare so depending on the weather and incidence of disease I have the ability to do one more spray. That being said, a spray may not solve all our problems as last year all my sprays went great and some of the greens experienced some of the worst bouts of disease I've seen in a long while. As mentioned in the Sept. post I'm working on the hunch that last falls fertility was too low. This year I went back to my old methods and used granular fertility as the backbone and augmented nutrition with foliar sprays. Going in we had very little disease with most occurring in those areas I missed. As it stands now there is small thumb sized disease spots :
(which developed before my last spray) that have me concerned but I'll keep an eye on the surfaces and see what, if any, progression occurs.
The last remaining task is to tarp #7 and #15 greens. I am waffling on #7 mostly because I am disappointed with the outcome over the last couple years. Also, the removal of trees has increased the spring sun so it seems to bare off sooner than it had in the past. The concern with that green is if it gets hit with ice damage, despite the increased sun, it will take a while to come back and sodding, especially now, is not an option.
Ice is a definite on 15 for a multitude of reasons including the obvious facts that it is surrounded by trees and is located in a depression at the base of a slope. What I need to figure out is why the Enkamat is exacerbating the disease (Go HERE).
With all staff finished except for myself and Neil L. we find ourselves cleaning up loose ends. We cleaned up the mounds in the parking lot (removed mulch and all the weeds) and needed to haul all the material away. I was able to borrow a dump trailer from TCR which is speeding up the process and while Neil hauls I'm picking away at edging cart paths which haven't been done for a number of years.
As the year winds down I will spend the next weeks reviewing and compiling numbers from this year and keep you updated as I glean information.
