Where we're at and Where we're going

If you're in town you know the somewhat blah weather has continued and, IMO, spring seem slow to come. Like 2017, I've been out removing snow and exposing cart paths and greens surfaces in an effort to get a jump on spring and to see what has happened under the snow over these past few months.

We started March with a good snow pack:

Close to 30" on 9G

We needed to knock it down to a more manageable level since experience has taught me that, at this course, anything over 24" is chore!

Walking on the sun crust to spread black sand

2 days later

4 days later

9G one day after clearing

We've pretty much had to do the same process for all the greens cleared to date. With little to no other areas open turf wise on the course much of the elk and deer began to eat any exposed turf resulting in more than a few frosty footprints showing up.

5G with frosty deer tracks

I've laid out tarps on most greens they seemed to be attracted to. I don't want to get too far ahead and we only have 7 spring tarps so I wanted to focus on tarping those greens that have been funky the last few years as well. To date we have 1,2,4,5,7,9, new PG, and 15 exposed and aside from damage from machine tires all the exposed greens look great - cold but great. Only 1, 7, and new PG don't have tarps but they will ASAP.

We'll keep removing snow on the front greens and will most likely let the back melt since those greens seldom cause us problems and, again, with limited man power I will have my hands full keeping up with the greens and tarps on the front nine.

Early Winter Update

First week of new year out of the way, most of the visitors we had over the holidays are back home (one more group this weekend!) and now it's time to get back and establish some sort of routine. But first I'll fill you in on where we are now.

The first snow did eventually melt over a majority of the course which allowed us to get back out there and finish off the fall aerating. Neil L and myself were able to tag team  a very large portion of the front rough with the aerator during the last week of November which was a nice bonus.

The greens mostly managed to keep a thin layer of snow but for a select few that I choose to clean off and treat one more time.

2G - most snow melted but I did shovel off some

We went a for a stretch with cold temperatures and no cover and I am a bit worried about the impact on the Poa but the good news is since the ground had time to freeze (and is still frozen) I have a good hunch disease development should not be and issue this year.  The flip side, and there's always a flip side, the frozen ground will make for a slow spring start since the soil temperature will need to warm up before things will start to grow.

I made reference in the previous post about covering the small tee renovation we started this fall. Hopefully you were able to walk out and nose around to see the changes. I find it distracting to look for my camera to document progress and since my hands always seemed to be covered in muck I'm never too excited to reach into my pocket and grab my phone to take a picture with it either.....so there really isn't very many good pictures, sorry! Instead I'll try to briefly describe the impetus, the methods, and what is left to do this upcoming spring.

Here's a secret: I do watch you (members and daily fee players) when you're out on the golf course and make mental notes about some of your habits. I'm not looking so much for the ball mark repairing, bunker raking, and divot filling that is not getting done but more to the things that I think make your day sh*tty. Although I try to avoid generalizing too much, I sometimes think I can divide golfers into two groups: the self serving narrow minded group that want everything catered to their game and the over the top extreme group that thinks every shot should be skill testing and if you can't keep up then don't bother playing.  Ignoring either extreme, what I think is more of an issue is the impact mobility and length (yes, length!) seem to have on most players at KGC. We don't have the skill or resources, monetarily or otherwise, to tackle any major changes. Generally, KGC is short and, IMO, it is narrow and not particularly forgiving off the tee for an average player or high handicapper. Also, some tee complexes themselves are awkward and difficult to access and I know there are players who feel the same based on where they park their carts, especially on 13 tee. There in lies the impetus for tweaking the 13th and 14th tees: constructing a variety of tee decks for all level of players while improving the ease of access to the tee decks for all.

A discussion with Tom Yost opened up the opportunity for us to begin renovating the 13 and 14 tees late in the fall. Tom Y has the equipment and skill to do this type of work and offered to perform the work "in kind". For both tees the plan involved generating fill from the existing decks to create forward tees.

Before-ish Pict 13T

After-ish Pict 13T

By lowering and cutting away the banks Tom Y was also able to rough out cart paths for both decks that greatly increased the ease of access to the teeing surface eliminating the need to drive on the actual tee deck for mobility challenged players (or those of us with just sore knees!). In preparation for the excavation we stripped the sod from both tees but what we did this time was salvage what we could on homemade sod "toboggans".

Tom Y in excavator, sod toboggans in foreground

In the end we had enough salvaged sod to completely sod the new forward tee on 14 as well as 80% of expanded white/blue tee deck. As implied by the previous sentence 14 tee is mostly complete with the cart path and back deck to be finalized in the spring.

13 tee is roughed out with some irrigation installed on middle deck but final grading for the new forward and rebuilt white and blue decks still need to be completed in the spring.

Installation of irrigation on 13 T

It's tough to estimate time line to completion mostly because of the weather wild card but I suspect, just based on labour demands, you won't be hitting off new tees before May long weekend.

There's a Bit of Snow out There!

It seems to be turning itself into a long snowy winter. which is my preference, versus rainy cold winter. However, since I've been struggling through the "100 Day Cold" since January I'm starting to long for some seasonable spring weather!

After the brief warm spell 10 days ago I went out to check snow pack and surfaces.  I get around the course on a ski track I try to maintain throughout the winter but there is so much snow I haven't been able to get out with my machine so I ended up "postholing" my way around to some greens to take a look.

The tape is crooked but you get the idea

To be honest, we've had snow like this before so although the amount is substantial it's not unreasonable.  The problem I have is it's too much to remove with the tools we have.  With the greens surface mostly frozen I could use the bobcat but because of the amount of snow we end up with huge snow banks that take longer to melt.  A manageable amount of snow is around 16".  We have some black sand which I've used before (go HERE) but not enough for all the greens.  I'm working on other ideas to cut the snow but in my experience the sand is the best.  I made mention last fall about getting snow off early to mitigate disease and that is still my plan but I have to be careful since the freeze/thaw cycles that are synonymous with spring are one of the ways to kill grass - especially poa. However, with no real thawing of the surfaces occurring under the snow and no obvious ice to date I believe it is safe-ish to leave the snow on a bit longer.

Brown tips from last fall but otherwise looking good

The only project planned this spring is, hopefully, the replacement of the netting at the driving range.  Environmental factors (U.V. light and wind) create constant wear and tear that ultimately leads to holes.

Big hole at a pole

We've been able to patch holes by knitting together tears but last year we began to see rips and tears develop from holes far outside of our reach. We can try to limp through in typical KGC fashion but there is a 4 week lag time from ordering to having the net arrive on site so if one of the tears eventually takes down the whole netting the range will be out of service until the netting is replaced. Plus we would have to figure out a way to get a bucket truck through to the range which is a somewhat less damaging and disrupting process in the late winter/early spring while the ground is still frozen versus any other time of the year.

Snow wise and project wise we are at a bit of a standstill.  I can't help but think that, based on the weather pattern we seem to be stuck in, that it has the potential to be slow start to the season....stay tuned.....

Stupid winter choices I feel I force myself to make.....

We're well on our way into winter now. Over the past week temps are getting to low -20's and staying well below zero during the day which is what I wanted to slow any disease development. We had a bit of snow (4 to 5 cm) this past Sunday night which is providing a bit of token cover. However that snow is the sh*tty part and reason for the title of this post. It has forced me to clean off 15 green so I could lay out tarp. 

Anxiety Inducing Snow Plow Job

 I know I said I would clean off snow on the problem greens if needed but in my mind I was only doing that as long as the ground was not frozen.  Once things set up I planned to keep the snow cover. I've been watching forecasts and I have shoveled, by hand, the small skiffs of snow for all the reasons mentioned in the last post. The part I'm unsure of is the type of impact plowing snow on frozen ground will have. Every spring this paragraph from an old USGA article plays in my head:

Traffic damage on frozen turf areas usually occurs during periods of freezing or thawing. The most devastating situation occurs when the grass blades and the upper one-half to one inch of soil has thawed, but the ground beneath their level remains frozen. Traffic will create a shearing action of the roots, rhizomes, and crown tissues at this time. This is comparable to cutting the plant tissue from the underlying root system with a sod cutter. Complete kill of leaves, crowns, and rhizomes can occur if the temperatures soon drop below 20° F. Symptoms from this severe injury include whitish to dark brown leaves that may mat on the surface. 

There was no way the top inch was thawed with a high of -2 for that day but I can tell you there was lots of sheared off grass blades. My hunch/hope is what I saw was mostly leaf tips. 

Neil L. plow did work really well and I believe I would use it again but, depending on results this coming spring, I may want to do a heavy sand top dressing as further protection from the plow blade. 

Uncharted territory....

As usual the title of this post is probably more dramatic than it needs to be but, admittedly, I feel somewhat lost.  The weather has been interesting to say the least but my memory is short so I'm glad I have a weather station keeping records.  Unfortunately, I assumed the website I was using kept historical weather but it appears they only go back one year so I've lost portions of weather data pre Nov 1, 2015. Not a big deal but inconvenient to be sure. Luckily, I wrote about the fall weather in a post last December (go HERE) which included some screen shots highlighting conditions. Last year after my last spray we had close to 45 mm of rain but cold temperatures and snow cover by last week in November. For this year we've had plenty of rain (85mm of rain from start of October to middle of the month and another 106 mm since 3rd week in October) and mild temperatures which makes for very high disease pressure.

The main "goto" fungicide application sprayed in late October has seen a good portion of the rain (86 mm) since it was applied and based on last years results we can assume its efficacy has been affected.  I've had to reapply fungicides 2 times already to control developing disease and now I'm hoping for clear cold weather for next couple weeks if for no other reason than to make condition less conducive for disease development.

Because of disease pressure I've been attempting to manage the surface environment as best as I can by removing snow from the greens (which, for some areas, I've done 3X already) with a homemade tool Neil L. created.

1st version - all manual

2nd version - automatic lift!

I am limiting surface moisture and hopefully encouraging the ground to stiffen up. Frozen ground slows disease but can be bad news regarding ice since any rain may very well freeze on the surface if it doesn't run off.

It seemed a bit futile to remove the small amounts of snow we've been getting since they melt within a two or three days so I left some snow from the last skiff to melt on a few greens to see if I was wasting my time. But I ended up with this:

Pink Snow Mold

The fuzz is mycelium and I know it's the bad fungus since it is on the periphery of damage caused from an earlier bout of disease. The interesting part is it only appeared on those greens where I left the snow to melt. That says 2 things to me:

1. Despite the concern I have regarding any potential wear and tear on the greens by plowing the snow off the surfaces (time will tell) I am having a positive impact on controlling disease.
2. My initial sprays have lost much of their control

I did re-apply a mix of contact fungicide and so-so systemic fungicide on Sunday so hopefully I can get the control I need to get through the winter. As risky as it is, I will continue to remove the small snow falls to mitigate the development of any disease but I won't be able to do that for long especially if we get any amount of snow at one time.

I should point out that the certain greens like 3,5,10,11,13,16,17,18 and both PG's are 95 to 100 percent good and have not seen any new disease development since the last spray in middle of October. However, 2,7, front portion of 8,9,14, and 15 are the greens that are being quite troublesome.  15 is a real problem since all the "new" disease occurred under the tarp and now I'm concerned about putting the tarp back on. I know that green gets ice every year and ice kills outright so the tarp has to go down but I'm sure when and how that will happen.

This can't be for real.....

Second week in February and we have a snow pack from 0 to maybe 9" in the real shady spots.  Those numbers are more like late March!  Like I said in the last post we didn't want rain and above normal temperatures.  If you've been in Kimberley for the last three weeks you'll know that's exactly what we got. As it stands now we have a mixture of thawed greens with no ice, some greens with thin ice over a mostly thawed surface, the odd one with ice/slush, and still some with frozen surfaces.  All things considered I'm still optimistic since I know when, where and what greens started to get ice and in all cases the ice is very thin and every green has that nice "green" smell.  The following pictures are from Friday, Feb. 13.

9 Green

18 Green

16 Green

When I had another look around on Sunday, Feb. 15 I saw less water/slush and more thawed surfaces.  Although it is somewhat true for most years, this year is turning into one of those years where the spring temperatures and the melting conditions will dictate the condition of the greens at the start of our year.  With the melt being so early and there still being lots of potential for cold temperatures the chances for damage from crown dehydration (freeze/thaw damage) and/or direct low temperature kill (for the poa only) are of far greater concern this year than in those years when the melt and turf exposure has occurred at a more traditional time.  Right now the strategy is to track the ice formation and keep an eye conditions under the ice and, I believe, delay exposing anything deliberately until we get closer to the middle of March.

Oops, forgot to add this little reading for you.  I sometimes have trouble digesting the gimmicky trends floating around golf to increase play.  The following article (GO HERE) touches on those trends and I find myself sympathizing with the authors views.  Take a look and see what you think.

Freaky Friday Follow Up

With first day of winter just around the corner I thought I'd give a brief update of how we made out after last week.  Right now, I am glad I didn't panic and attempt to remove any more snow than what I did.  With respect to #9 and new putting green things did not change which may mean problems in the spring but I suspect we may not have too much to worry about on #9...just a hunch (or hope?).  The rest of the greens I that I've looked at appear like this:

#2 Green Surface

If you remember the last post I said things were developing a more solid surface layer.  Now?  There is no layer like I was seeing last week.  Not sure why but I'll take it.  There is just over 3" of snow which has similar properties to styrofoam (dry, hard, strong).  Unlike styfroam, I don't think there is much insulation in this cover so temperature swings may have an impact.  Because the turf is dormant I don't think cold will negatively impact us but mild above zero temperatures (especially overnight) and rain may cause problems unless we get a good fluffy snow cover within the next little while.

Despite the fact that we're entering a slow time work/golf wise I will keep an eye on things and provide updates so check back often.

Freaky Friday....

...which hopefully won't turn into Sh*tty Saturday.  The pineapple express is at it again and as usual it's created some headaches.  The mild temperatures during the day and night combined with the rain have pretty much saturated the snow covering the course.  Since none of the green surfaces are thawed (I had to dig a valve up last week and needed a pick ax to break the top 6" of soil before I got past the frost) the slow trickle of water through the snow is starting to freeze on the surface.

"Pebbly" Looking Green Surface

A quick survey yesterday of all the greens (except 13; I haven't been there yet) revealed all the greens have a similar type of appearance.  Basically, the somewhat loose surface granules have started to coalesce into a entity with more substance (sort of tap dancing around saying it, aren't I?).  The new putting green has got this going on:

Dreaded Clear Ice

Now what?  I suspect that there is very little buffering capacity left in the snow cover and we won't be able to ride out another bout of wet weather like we just had without making things worse; however, I also suspect that since most greens surfaces appear similar to the first picture and not the second we may not be that bad off.  To back up this suspicion with more than just my "spidey sense" I decided to experiment a bit.

The '' Ol' Wishy Washy Split Plough on #9 Green

Why only half?  This way I can be right and wrong no matter what happens in the spring!  But truthfully  (assuming things don't get any worse ice wise) I'm not sure the surface has enough ice cover to be overly damaging.  I do know that it is not uncommon for dense ice to develop when you plough wet snow and the surface doesn't completely clear off but luckily for us by the end of the day the pebbly ice looked like this:

Crumbly Ice with Air Gap

This layer sort of comes off with a bit of work but I'm going to leave it one more day and see what happens.  And finally...

Yea, That's Ice

I removed all the snow from the new putting green and by the end of the day not a whole lot had melted. Let's call it day 1 of ice cover on that girl.  Again, we'll see what tomorrow brings but that one might be funky in the spring, just saying....

Winter Update.....

Those 25 degree temperature swings in less than 12 hours are tough to handle.  It's back into the deep freeze with overnight lows below -21 Celcius.  Although we did not receive much rain, the above freezing temperatures had a significant impact on snow level and moisture.  The best way to describe the snow was "creamy"...or really wet "mash potato" snow over a very thin "corny" ice.

3 Green

By Friday night it was still rainy but ultimately we got the dump and temperature drop the forecast called for.  I checked conditions late Saturday and there was actually standing water and slush under the snow despite the cold temperatures.  I knew I had to wait to get an honest feel for conditions so I didn't check until today (Monday).  So far this is what I've come across:

3 Green, again

 We have close to 4" fluff over 2" of frozen "mash potato" on top of close to 1/2 corn ice.  Some other greens have similar but the surface ice has a bit more substance but still somewhat removable and not the dreaded clear ice.  I still have to go to all greens to get an idea of what's out there.  I am sure 15 will be covered with ice, hence the tarp.

Not an ideal situation but not exactly uncommon either.  I'll keep monitoring to see if anywhere develops more severe ice but as it stands now the turf is at it peak strength dormancy wise so I am comfortable with leaving things as is.  As usual, it's later on in the season when the problems can really develop so stay tuned. 

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.

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!

Early Spring Update

I've begun to plough some cart paths so I have a way to get around and in the process I've checked the surfaces of some of the greens.  So far things still appear pretty good.  In some cases the snow level is as low as 9" with no obvious ice.  Other greens with more snow (14") have changed.  The surface ice visible a few weeks ago has now become sort of less "ice like" (?) and those greens themselves are mostly thawed.  We've been below seasonal norms the past couple weeks so I am glad we're not in a situation where we would have to remove ice; it just doesn't work very well and usually creates more problems.  The river forecasting centre has the snow pack around 97% of normal for this time of year which hopefully translate into a long sustained run off. 

When I am not ploughing snow I am prepping/painting the accessories (flag stick, garbage cans, blah, blah, blah) getting them ready for this season. Also, as part of preparations for the up coming season I sent out a survey to certain people.  If you received it please compete it (it's only 10 questions) as I am seeking your input.  I'll discuss the result in a post after the AGM in February.

Man, I Hate November....

If there was one month I could do without it would be November.  No golf, no skiing, grey skies and sucky weather.  The last 7 to10 days have seen conditions change from snow and winter to open turf, slush and ice because of rain and then back to winter.  I can now say removing the snow from select greens earlier on was the right choice, especially since the surfaces were covered with a nice snow layer soon afterward.  I left some of the slushy snow on one section on 9 green and watched what happened to the snow conditions and observed that if I had left the wet layer of snow on those greens I'm pretty sure we would've had the beginnings of an ice layer.

Layers on 9 Green

I didn't get to pat myself on the back for long because the weather went funky again and we got rain and mild temperatures and we were right back into another tough spot 7 days later.  This time I did not remove the snow mostly because of the amount and the wet weather.  There was enough snow and so much moisture in the snow that the blowers would not have been able to throw it far enough without us having to double handle it.  Further, once you start to blow snow that wet you have to get it off because it is guaranteed to form ice.  Anyways, the hope was for mild temperatures for a few days and maybe even rain like we had earlier on to get the snow to a more manageable level.  No luck.

Multi layers #11 Green

Now we have 7 cm fresh snow over about 3 cm "tight" corn snow over very thin ice on those greens we did not blow the first time out.  The greens we cleaned have about 6cm snow over 2 cm tight corn snow layer.  All surfaces are unfrozen and if we get a good cover before the temperature really drops that could help keep that corn layer from getting more ice like.  

All bets are off....

As alluded to in the last post, this time of year is tricky.  Early in the week the weather forced my hand and I had to make a choice.  The rain and the "warmish" weather did a number on the snow cover on the certain greens.

2 Green,  November 19th

The greens on the front that can be difficult are covered with impermeable tarps and look like this:

1 Green Tarp

For both these situations there was not enough cover to worry about ice formation but only because the ground is not frozen.  In this situation, however:

4 Green

I was slightly more concerned.  Ice could become a problem if the temperature dropped significantly so we blew the snow off of #4, #5, #10, #18, and #8 greens with the hope of "managing" ice formation (the upper putting green, 2, and 3 greens basically melted while 1, 6, 7 and 9 all had some sort of tarp on their surface).  As I've mentioned, blowing snow opens surfaces up to the potential of freezing so it is sort of a risk but the quantity of moisture in the snow pack (wet slush) for those greens forced me to make a decision. Luckily, those greens only remained exposed for a couple days and never froze.  We now have close to 4" of snow on the front greens and no sign of any ice on the greens we cleared.

The back greens (other than 10, 18 and 17) had more snow so I decided not to blow those greens.  To be honest, we really did not have enough time to clean them anyways.  I went out today and looked and saw 4" fresh snow over a plate glass layer of ice over an inch of corn snow over unfrozen ground.  That says to me leaving those greens may have been O.K. but it is early and my crystal ball doesn't look any farther ahead than to my next meal so, like I said, "All bets are off".

The Death Zone.....

I sometimes equate November with that point you here about on Everest called "the death zone" or "the point of no return" or some other euphemism that has foreboding overtones.  Now is that time just before winter when the weather can do funky stuff and you can be forced into making snap decisions that you're stuck with for the rest of the winter based on nothing more than your spidey-sense. 

Right now we are in good shape with all greens having a little snow cover and none of the surfaces frozen. 


4 Green With About 1.5" Snow Cover

15 Green With Thin Ice Layer Over Tarp

Why an unfrozen surface is good this time out is because of how little snow cover we have and the potential for rain in the forecast.  Do we take all the cover off to limit the formation of ice or do we leave it and hope for enough rain to melt all the snow or do we leave it and hope that because of our elevation we get snow and not rain? At this point the temperature is suppose increase so along as the over night lows stay above zero it won't take long for the snow to melt, especially if it rains.  If we lose our cover we are back into the possibility of the ground freezing and all the problems that inadequate snow cover can bring.  Then again none of this may happen but I like keeping a record of what I think in these situations and look back and criticize my choices.

Bummer.....

October 23, 10 cm

Well not really but still it could have waited until the end of the week.  It's early so I bet it will be gone before you know it since seasonal norms are with lows of -2 and highs of +10.  I guess the good news it all the greens have the spray they needed before the snow.  I got one more in my back pocket depending on weather.  The bad news is not all the fairways were sprayed (still have to do 1, 6 and 10) but I am going to bet this isn't staying.  Work wise I am still trying to get stuff cleaned up.  I now know I cannot operate with less than 3 people for shutdown there is too much that has to be done at the same time.  There will be things not getting done this year unless we have a protracted fall with no snow.  Not much else to dicuss but as always I'll keep things updated.

October 1st and Time To Panic

What a farce.  The past month monkeying with the river has been a complete disaster.  I was concerned with government delays but instead it has been everything else that has dragged out the process.  Contractors, pumper trucks, and deliveries all seemed to conspire against us but really it was just a series of poorly timed events that includes the continuation of summer that have delayed the projects completion.

Everyday I go and see more areas succumbing to heat stress brought on by the lack of water and it is finally worrying me. As the season progresses to mid-fall and the days get shorter and colder the opportunity turf will have to green up and store carbs before the ground freezes are all but disappearing.  I am concerned with the wear on areas from traffic that are no longer growing.  There is no way they had sufficient time to prepare for a hard winter and I don't see how those areas will recover next year to the same condition they were in early on.

When we spray fungicide it has a systemic component that has to taken up by a living grass plant in order to work at its best.  That will not happen on any area that has already gone brown and dormant.  I guess if you had to put a positive spin on it you could say that disease also needs a live plant to wreak its havoc so why worry?  You worry because if we have a hard winter (cold, no cover) the turf will get hammered from low temperature kill because it did not have time in the fall to prepare for winter.  You worry because if we get big snow over unfrozen ground turf will get hammered during spring melt when disease is active and because the fungicide that was applied in the fall was not taken up. You worry because if we get any sort of thaw or rain event that forms ice the turf will not have the reserves to cope and it will get hammered that way.

Granted most the areas are fairways, rough, and some tees but so much can happen over winter that it really pisses me off to know we are already behind the 8 ball for next spring and winter hasn't even started!  Hopefully, this is one of those things I've overestimated.

Trying to Figure it Out

It's probably the farthest thing from your mind but this post is a review of winter damage we experienced this year.  One thing I am learning is just as it takes multiple inputs to make the turf appear good it also takes more than one thing to cause damage.  I am always looking for common denominators to explain damage.  It's only with the benefit of hindsight do I think that one of the factors impacting spring conditions was the level and condition of the snow cover on the greens this past winter.  All the areas damaged this spring were prone to poor snow coverage during one or multiple times through out this past winter.

What really got me thinking about this was comparing the snow pack (depth and consistency) between 12 and 13 greens.  In late February there was 8" of tight corn snow on 12 green over a 1/2 of surface ice.  On that same date 380 yards away on 13 (a green with the same aspect) there was 16" of loose corn snow over an ice free and thawed surface.  Why?  Both are surrounded on the left and back by trees but the trees on 13 are much farther away so, it is my theory, that the trees influence (in this case shelter from snow) was limited; i.e. less shelter from the trees on 13 so more snow on that green versus 12.  

The damage on the front left of 1 green, I think, was caused by the trees acting as a heat sink.  During sunny days they would absorbed heat and radiated it at night.  Stupid sounding I know but I've been around enough times to see the snow melt first on the south west side of these trees to know that it is a very common occurrence.  This happened a few times early in the spring and combined with the snow events we experienced in March I think that area went through a series of melts that created a number of freeze/thaw cycles that ultimately killed the turf. 

Front Left #1 Green

What about the wrinkles of green under the tarp on #1 green?  This was where the semi-permeable tarp created insulating air gaps between the turf and the ice (a case for insulating greens prone to early season melting, i.e. bubble wrap).

Now the putting green.

New Putting Ice Layer

It too is prone to early season melting and freeze/thaw exposure.  I've never worried about it because of the bent grass component.  This time out I think the green was unhealthy going into winter and did not have the CHO reserves to cope with the freeze/thaw and ultimate anoxia created from the ice layer that developed.  For this green it was probably that one-two punch that caused all the problems since the lower half, which was completely playable early on, had the same lack of fertility but no ice.

What about 9 green? Remember this?

Ice Removed From Back #9 Green

I exposed it thinking the damage was done so what could I lose?  Interestingly enough while the back has mostly recovered it is those area on the right side that I did not touch in February that are still slow to come.

#9 Green One Day After Black Sand Melted Snow

Probably that damage relates to the melting of the snow I did in early March.  During that time the temperatures ranged from -14 to +10 and I think the mistake lies in melting the snow too fast (creating free water) and too early.  At the time I was concerned with a slow melt and freeze/thaw damage.  It may have been better to blow what snow I could, melt any ice and then tarp the green.

All these areas struggle with shade during the spring and fall but so do other greens and they weren't damaged.  But, again I think, a possible common denominator is the condition of the snow cover.  Most all other greens had a deep snow pack and were slow to melt.  The real kicker for me is the damage on 12 green.  The worst area is the spot where I exposed it very early thinking I was limiting the ice damage.  The rest of the green that I left covered was still damaged but has recovered faster than that back tier that was exposed earlier -- opposite as to what has occurred on #9 green.

Next winter it will be a different story.  I know this is long winded and awkward and maybe I've over explained stuff but I think with the way this spring has shaped up for golf courses in this area people should know that the choices made when dealing with winter can have different results within a golf property let alone different results between golf properties.

Sorta like bangin' your head against a wall....

March 20

 Another day and another 4 inches.  The naivety of my earlier comments regarding exposed turf back at the beginning of March are glaring obvious now.  I like snow so it really isn't too disappointing but my hamstrings are still aching from hitting the slopes and chewin' some pow last week so I was looking forward to the change of pace that work can bring.  Snow pack is back up over 18" as of yesterday and after today (Tuesday, March 20th) I'll bet we will be close to 2 feet in the shady spots.

Last week we started clearing off number 7 green which is the only green with an impermeable cover ("ice shield") which is fairly typical for this time of year.  I try to get the impermeable tarps off first since they can create problems if they are left on too long. 

Pushing Ice off 7 Green

We were a little over half done when it snowed overnight and that made it awkward to use the Bobcat so we switched gears and went to 15 green thinking the snow on 7 would melt within a day or two.  There is a lot of ice on 15 so I want to get it off.  Ten days ago water was puddling on 15 so bad we had to cut a trench to direct the water off.  Most of the free water that did not run off formed ice so we needed to use the old aerator and chip away at it.  It was slow and by the end of day 2 we were just over half way and then it snowed, again.

Tools of the Ice Removal Trade

 Now what?  More blowin' and chipin', I guess.  Really, a normal year would just have us starting to remove snow from the tarped greens this week.  We usually wait until mid-March mostly because March snow storms aren't exactly unheard of and, also, I am usually not as uptight as I am this year because of the ice on certain greens.  I think I am cautiously optimistic but until all greens are clear and dry I will find it hard to comment on course conditions without a ton of disclaimers.