Sorry for the length and delay of this post. It has been a busy time at the golf
course. Yes, we do get busy in
winter! There are only three of us on staff
through the winter and there is a lot to do.
While writing this I also discovered there is need for a few other blog
posts relating to why we aerate late in the season, why ice build up on greens
is worrisome, and what keeps the Turfcare Department busy in the winter. But in order to shorten an already long blog
post, I will try to get around to these topics in the New Year.
Ice formation on the surface of greens is never good and my
collective experience with ice at Greywolf has not been positive. As I reported previously, we have a thin layer
of ice that has formed on our untarped greens (8 of our 19 greens). The ice layer formed as the result of two rain
events in late November and early December.
The ice varies between 3mm and 6mm in thickness. Although not very thick, I believed ice
covers most of the surfaces on our untarped greens. I believed this because after each rain event
we went out and dug snow pits on the greens in order to examine the turf. We also pulled out a few turf samples to
measure the thickness of the ice (See my
last two posts).
On December 7th we undertook an experiment to see
if we could clear the ice from the surface of the 10th green. The
goal was to clear the ice and not cause any damage to the turf. Another goal was to see if our sampling
program was correct in predicting the amount of ice coverage on the untarped
greens.
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| Assistant Superintendent Colin Matheson starting snow removal |
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| Snow Removal on 10 |
