Speaking With Future Turf Managers

Scott talking to students about internship at Greywolf

Yesterday Scott Elliott, Greywolf’s Second Assistant, and myself had the pleasure of speaking with future turf manager at Olds College.  It was a privilege to talk with students about our internship program and how agronomy and economics are intertwined at Greywolf.   I was exciting to listen to and answer questions from the students about the maintenance and cultural practices at Greywolf.  I was thrilled by the depth and number of questions (and the fact I did not put them to sleep!).

Scott and I also took the opportunity to sit down with Jim Ross from the Prairie Turf Research Centre and review the data from our tarp project.  We also reviewed the data from other golf courses with similiar tarp projects and discussed what other superintendents are experiencing on their golf courses this winter.

Thanks to Jason Pick and the students at Olds for taking the time to host us.  It was a pleasure to speak in front of students who will be future colleagues.

First Look Under Tarps

I am currently optimistic about what we have seen under the snow and tarps.  I always have to remember at this point we still have two and half months of solid snow cover until we reach the middle of April.  I must also say, it took a week and a few phone calls for my optimism to arrive.  Let me explain.

After cutting into the tarps on the practice green, first and twelfth greens on January 27^th  I was surprised by what we found under the tarps.  Each of these greens had ice under the bubble wrap.  This was not expected.  It showed up in different forms on each green.   The practice green and twelfth green showed light ice between the bubbles on the bubble wrap.  The first green had ice covering the majority of the sample area.  This can be seen in the photo below; when the bubble wrap was peeled back a mirror image of the bubble wrap in ice was found on the surface of the green.  We noted the iced to be very light, milky in nature, and not very dense.  It could easily be removed with a finger nail or the edge of a knife.

Ice Under Tarp 1st Green

Ice Was Not Thick - Easily Removed

Even though the ice was light in nature I became very concerned.  I had expected to see no ice and green turf.   Did we have a leak?  I could understand one leak but three leaks in different locations on the golf course?    This seemed highly unlikely.  Was this the result of condensation and respiration?  Had moisture blown under the tarps as a result of venting?  Was there something else we did not understand or take into account? 

Greens Monitoring and Sampling

We carry out several maintenance practices on the greens during the winter.  The two main practices involve monitoring the health of the greens and “venting” our greens.  I will try to post information about venting green shortly. 

Monitoring the greens is made up of three components.  Checking the temperature sensors is the first component.  The second is physically inspecting the turf under the snow and the final step is sampling the green to asses turf health.

Monitoring Temperature:

Under the snow and tarps, we have several temperature probes which record the temperature on the surface of the greens.  All tarpped greens have three sensors.  On the seventeenth and eighteenth greens, there are addition temperature sensors buried one inch beneath the surface.  This helps us assess frost conditions in the rootzone. 

Currently the temperature probes on the surface of the greens are consistently reading -.05 to -2  ^oC.    The rootzone probes, located beneath the surface of the greens, indicate temperatures are averaging between .5 and 1 ^oC degree centigrade. In other words, the snow is insulating the surface of the greens from harsh winter conditions and there is very little frost in the rootzone of the greens.

Inspection:

The next step in monitoring our greens is to physically inspect the turf.  The first step in the process is to dig a pit through the snow until we find the turf, tarp, or in a bad scenario a sheet of ice.  We began this process during the last week in January.

Inspecting #5 Green - No Tarp - No Ice