Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Melting Wonderland

The snow is finally melting. After three weeks of snow cover, the snow is leaving rather quickly. these pictures were taken on Friday of last week and most of the snow was gone on Monday. I am very happy to see this since some of our crew are returning this week. We have a lot of work to accomplish in the next three weeks, so the weather needs to be on our side.

I love the snow and always look forward to a good snow fall that provides a lot of moisture that is spread out evenly throughout the golf course. The moisture is always needed in Central Oregon. Anytime we can get a good even moisture event here in Central Oregon is a great day. But sometimes the snow just slows down our work progress especially when the snow event comes so close to our opening of the golf course. This just means that we work harder and more hours so we can be prepared for the opening.

For the next three weeks we will be busy doing the following:

  • Clubhouse landscaping
  • Working in the bunkers redistributing sand and adding sand where needed
  • Finishing the renovation work on holes #2, #7, #9 and #11
  • Finishing the fairway topdressing
  • Aerifying greens and tees
  • Cleaning up and mowing prior to opening
  • Starting up the irrigation system

We have a lot of work ahead of us but we are used to this type of pressure and we will be ready as always.

Topdressing

I hope that you can see the color differences in the turfgrass. What I am trying to show is the effects of our topdressing efforts. These pictures were taken last week during the melt. The grass was starting to "wake up" from the heat that is being generated from the sand and the sunny days. The heat is warming the surface and creating a warmer environment. The green grass is evidence of the warming. The greening has actually be occurring for about four weeks.

I really like to see this especially at this point of the year. The days are getting longer and the winter is almost over. Since the golf course will open April 1st, it is best to have the turfgrass actively growing. It gives us a jump on the season both with growth and color.

The green-up actually started in early February. We actually had a lot of sunny warm days during February and the grass was responding very well. My biggest concern is very cold weather arriving when the grass is actually greening up. Since the grass is somewhat growing, it is lush and rather weak. So if frigid temperatures hit with out any snow cover, this could be bad news.

This scenario came very close to occurring a few weeks ago. On February 15th, we received about 10 inches of snow on top of the greening grass. That next week, the low temperatures dip below zero for several nights along with some windy conditions. Thankfully, we received the snow before the cold temperatures. Not sure how we could avert any damage if we had frigid temps and no snow, I guess just cross our fingers.

I still believe that our practice of burying the turfgrass areas in sand prior to the winter is the best thing for our golf course. Tetherow is very exposed and wind can be our enemy. Wind with no moisture is a killer. So the sand is our only defense. We could invest in covers for our greens which may be an option for some of our greens but sometimes they actually hinder your efforts in protecting the green surface. The sand has a lot of benefits and until we see something negative from this practice, we will continue on with our winter topdressing efforts.


Disease

There is some disease present after the snow has melted. I am not that worried about the disease because it is areas that are out of play or edges of fairways or rough. All of the important playing surfaces such as greens, tees and fairways are very clean. This picture is from an area near the cartpath on #3. Even though the fine fescue is very susceptible to Pink Snow Mold and Gray Snow Mold, it grows out of the damage rather quickly.

But I really do not want to press my luck next season. I will be looking for a combination of products that we can use next year that will allow us to spray more area for the same or lower cost. Since we spray our winter disease products primarily once in the fall and hope that they last the entire winter, it is best to have all of the turfgrass areas covered. We never know what kind of winter we will have year after year. The Farmers Almanac did say that we would have a wetter winter this year. I would say that the prediction was correct.

This picture is from #7, from the looks of it we will need to spray a bit more area next fall. It is probably the worst area on the golf course. No worries, it will come back with minimal effort.

Take care and we will keep you updated on our progress.






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