What Happens to the Golf Course in Winter

Winter could be considered a pretty boring time of year for many turf managers, but it definitely is a very important time of year for us. There are many things that must be done for the turf to make it through the winter in excellent condition and ready for play once spring is here.

In our climate the turf will begin to go dormant around the end of October. Dormancy occurs as the days begin to get shorter and the temperature becomes cooler. At this point grass growth slows down substantially. The important process of dormancy is the process of the turf winterizing itself to become cold tolerant so that it can withstand the cold temperatures and winds that occur throughout the winter months. The winterization process begins as the plant starts to produce high levels of sugars through photosynthesis from the suns light. As the amount of sugars increase, the amount of water in the plants crown and roots begins to decrease. With the increase in sugar and decrease in water the plant has created its own antifreeze. As a result the plant can now withstand much colder temperatures than if this process did not occur.

Dormancy is really noticeable as the turf really begins to lose its colour. The eventual brown colour that you will see is an indication that dormancy has occurred. Most people would associate brown with plant death, but it is in fact the complete opposite. It is an indication that the plant is alive, doing its job and will be ready for us in the spring. 

Dormant brown turf

It is very important for us in the fall as dormancy is occurring to be very careful with the turf. This is because as the turf is becoming dormant it will be freezing or be covered in frost some of the time from the colder temperatures developing. When the turf is frozen or frost covered we must keep people, equipment, etc. off of it until it has thawed out. Traffic on the frozen turf will kill it. This is because the internal cellular structures of the plant are frozen at the time and pressure from a foot or tire pressing down on the plant will rupture the plant cells and result in plant death. So this is obviously the reason why in the late fall on the frosty mornings we do not allow golfers out on the course until the frost has melted. 

Frost damage from foot traffic

(http://arbutusridgegolf.blogspot.ca/)

Unfortunately for us in Mainprize our turf has to fight harder to stay alive during the winter months than most golf courses. This is because of the frequent and strong winds we have throughout the winter and the fact that we do not have much shelter or protection from the winds as a result of being a "links" style golf course. Desiccation can occur during the winter months as a result of these cold winds. Desiccation occurs because the wind dries out any remaining moisture that may exist in the plants leaf tissue. Since the roots are frozen in the soil they can not take up any water. The loss of all moisture within the plant will eventually result in the death of the plant. To try and prevent desiccation from occurring we must protect the plant. We protect the plant by covering the turf with tarps in the winter and snowfencing our greens and tee boxes. The tarps and trapped snow from the snowfence will act as a protective layer between the turf and the winds so that the plant will not be exposed to these cold winds and desiccation. 

Winter desiccation

(usga.org)

Another concern for turf managers during the winter is disease. The main disease we are concerned with is snow mold. The main tool we use to prevent snow mold is the use of preventative fungicides in the fall just before snow cover. The fungicides help to prevent the disease pathogen from developing and spreading and taking over the turf. We do not typically face as much disease pressure from snow mold as most other courses in our area. This is because we do not usually have near as much snow cover as most courses or the protection of a tree-lined golf course which all help to create an environment that is much more likely for snow mold to occur. That being said though, we still can have snow mold so we do apply preventative fungicide applications to the greens, tee boxes and fairways in the fall.

Snow mold

(http://marquettegolfclubgrounds.blogspot.ca/)

So if we can follow the proper procedures of protecting the turf against things like disease and desiccation and allow the plant to winterize itself properly we stand a much greater chance of surviving the winter well and being able to open the course in the spring in great condition.      

15 green tarped and snowfenced for winter

Two Years Later... A Look Back

Earlier this week I was looking back at some of the pictures I had taken from the summer of 2011 when I was originally looking into coming to Mainprize. It was hard to believe some of the changes the course has undergone. The overall condition of the course is now at a level that it should be. The golf course now has a level of respectability that it has not had in a long time. This really is a great thing to see as the potential that this golf course has is endless. There really is not a better layout for any golf course in Saskatchewan. The course has the ability to be one of the best in the province and I now believe that we are well on our way. 

One of the biggest jobs that we have had to take on since I began here was recovering from the flooding in 2011. The flood had completely wiped out almost four golf holes. The water left the turf on these holes completely dead. 

Looking down hole #5

Hole #5 green and hole #6

Hole #5 a month later after the water had choked out and killed the turf

So recovering from the flood would be a huge project. In the mean time we needed to have 18 holes in play so we reopened and reestablished the three practice holes that had been closed in 2008. The holes were completely overgrown and had the be cut down and the tee boxes and greens had to be completely redone. The irrigation system on these holes was also in desperate need of some major attention. By the July long weekend of 2012 we had these three holes back in play and were back to 18 holes. 

The third practice hole after reestablishment

We then finally began the re-grow and reconstruction of the four flooded holes in August of 2013. The holes have caught very well and should finally be back in play sometime summer 2014. 

Hole 7 forward tee looking great just a few weeks after seeding

Looking down hole 6 one month after seeding

The flood was obviously a huge concern but the rest of the existing course needed a lot of attention as well. The irrigation system was barely in working condition and suffered from many problems and breaks. The irrigation system is still not perfect but it is completely functional now and is almost as good as you could ever expect it to be. The bunkers on the course were in desperate need of some major attention also. Most bunkers had not been properly maintained or edged in many years. My younger highschool aged students deserve a huge amount of credit for the turnaround with our bunkers. They have put a ton of work into them and they are now looking very good. Other projects like drainage, cartpaths and turf repairs/sodding have made a huge difference to the course and a lot of these same highschool aged kids were responsible for the success of a lot of these projects.

One of the many irrigation breaks we have had to fix

A freshly edged bunker on hole #1

The biggest problem overall though was definitely the poor turf conditions of the greens, tee boxes and fairways in general. The course has responded very well to the changes in the maintenance procedures that we have been performing in the last two years. Our greens are now in as good of shape as anyone else in the province, the tee boxes are in mint condition overall, and fairways are slowly coming along but are greatly improved overall. 

Before

Conditions were brown and dry from no irrigation 

Dead spots on green

Dead spots on green

Closeup of dead spot

After

Conditions green and lush

Greens full of colour and no dead spots

Tees are dense and recover from wear quickly

The success we have had the past two years has been due to all the hard work my crew has put in for me. They have given me their all and performed excellently. It is great to see that all their hard work has finally paid off. We have also had many volunteers come out and help during projects like sodding and tarping. Without these volunteers we would not have been able to accomplish what we have so a lot of the credit also goes to them. The success the course is now beginning to see is only the beginning. The potential the course has is huge and I am confident that it will eventually reach this potential in the years to come.

Wrapping Things Up

We have been busy finishing up our final preparations for the winter months. On October 21 we began our irrigation system blowout. In this process we hook a large sized air compressor (1600 cfm) into our irrigation system and blow compressed air through our irrigation system at around 90psi. This process removes all water from the pipe, swing-joints and sprinkler heads of this system. This is necessary to ensure that the system does not freeze and crack/break from the water expanding within. This process is quite possibly the most important thing that we do each year. The irrigation system is such an important part of our operation so ensuring that blowout is done properly will ensure a properly functioning system and a system that will not need to be repaired. The process took about a day and a half this year and was completed on the 22nd.

The air compressor hooked up at pumphouse

It snowed on the 21st making blowout a little more difficult

We finished our last bits of winter fungicide spraying on October 25. The last areas that we did were the tee boxes and fairways. This will help us protect against the development of winter disease and protect against the extreme temperatures and weather of winter.

14 fairway after fungicide application

On October 30 and 31st we put all the tarps out on all 22 of our greens. We tarp our greens to help protect and insulate the greens over the winter. Extreme colds and winter winds can freeze and dry out the greens to the point of plant death. This is known as desiccation. So the tarps help to keep the temperature between the plant and tarp warm enough that the plant can handle it and it protects the crown of the plant from drying out from being exposed to strong winds through the winter. We then follow up tarping with snowfence. We put snowfence around the greens and our tee boxes. The snowfence helps to trap snow and hold it on top of the greens and tee boxes. Snow is the best insulation out of anything for the golf course. A good layer of snow will keep the temperature at the turf level much warmer than the air temperature and keep things alive. We will also be putting some snowfence across the fairways on holes 5 and 7 where we completed grow-in this year. The newly established turf is not as strong as our well established turf yet so the snowfence will help to protect these fairways from the winter elements so they are happy and healthy come next spring.

14 green after the tarp was installed

Looking out to the tarped 12 green on a beautiful fall afternoon

The End is Here

As of this morning the 2013 golf season has officially come to an end. The flags were pulled from the greens so we are now closed to any golfing traffic for the year. The weather is turning cold very quickly now and the golf course is getting ready to go to sleep for the winter. This is the time of year now that if traffic is allowed on the course it can really hurt us for the start of next year. Any traffic or wear will not recover since the turf is no longer actively growing. 

We have begun work on adding cartpaths to the course but this has been a slow process due to low staff numbers. We will get as much done as we can the rest of this fall but there will still be a lot left for next season.

Sod removed from cartpath area and placed in fairway

Last week we began and completed aerating the fairways. The process went quite smoothly and was completed quickly. Removing the cores will open up the rootzone for better water and air infiltration, reduce the compaction from all the traffic this season, and promote new growth for next spring. This will really help us to continue to improve the overall condition of our fairways.

18 fairway after aeration

We cut the grow-in holes 4,5,6 and 7 for the final time last week. Overall I am very happy with the progress of the grow-in and I think we will be in a great position to have them in very good shape for next season and to be able to have them open part way through the season next year.

Hole #6

We will be shutting the irrigation off today and will begin blowing out the system on Monday. We will be opening all drains over the weekend to allow as much water to drain from the system before we actually begin blowing out. The blowout process should take about two days for us to complete. It is probably the most important thing we do in the year because the irrigation system is such an important part of a golf course. If it is not blown out properly, it will bring on a lot of problems the following season, which in turn will negatively affect the overall conditioning of the golf course.

We are completing our final winter disease protection fungicide application today. It helps to protect us from disease the can develop over the course of the winter. The most common thing that can develop over the winter is snow mould. Other than disease protection the products that we are applying can also aid in helping against dessication (drying out the surface from extreme cold winter winds that can result in death) and help promote early spring green-up the following year. We will also be spraying the tee boxes and fairways next week for winter disease protection.

Final fungicide application on greens

We will also plan to tarp greens sometime during the week of the 28th depending on weather. We will then be putting up snow fence on all greens and tee boxes and some fairways after that. This helps us to trap snow which helps to form a layer of insulation for the turf that will protect the course from the extreme colds of winter. 

So in closing I would like to thank everyone for a great and successful 2013 golf season and I hope to see you all next year for another great year!

Hole 13 in fall

Greens Aeration, Grow-in and CGSA Fall Field Day

Greens aeration was completed on September 17. The process took just under two days to complete and went pretty smoothly. The aeration process consisted of aerating the greens first, then picking up all the cores we pulled from the aerator with our core harvester, then topdressing the greens with a fine sand, brushing the sand into the aeration holes, and then finally fertilizing the greens the next day to get the fertilizer directly into the soil.

14 green after being aerated

The aeration process aids in helping many things. It helps reduce compaction from foot and equipment traffic by pulling material and loosening up the rootzone. Pulling cores helps to remove the amount of thatch. Thatch is dead and decaying plant matter that forms a layer in the rootzone that can affect root depth and water infiltration if too thick. The holes allow for better air movement and water and fertilizer infiltration which are all very important in maintaining a healthy plant. Topdressing also allows us to add a more desirable material into our rootzone and reduces any layering that may occur over years of growth and fertility.

3 green right after topdressing and brushing

The grow-in of the flooded valley is also progressing nicely. We have now cut all greens and tees atleast once and will be cutting some fairway areas soon. The areas are continuing to fill in and thicken up very nicely, especially with the additional fertilizer and cutting the have received.

Forward tee on 7 after cutting

We are also in the process of switching out some old malfunctioning sprinkler heads with newer ones. This will obviously allow us to water in areas that we were not before because the heads were not working properly. These new sprinkler heads are also much more efficient than the old and we will hope to continue to replace our old heads with new as funds allow.

New sprinkler after installation

This past Sunday and Monday the 22nd and 23rd I had the opportunity to attend the 2013 Canadian Golf Superintendents Association annual Fall Field Day at the Wascana Country Club in Regina. This was a great opportunity as things like this are not in our province very often. It was great to network with fellow superintendents and learn from them and hear how they are doing things. It is also great to visit places like the Wascana that are known to be some of the best maintained courses in our province and see that we are in very similar condition to them for the most part and that all of our hard work must be paying off!

2013 Fall Field Day at Wascana Country Club

Our greens are still holding a lot of colour late

into the fall this year

 

2011 Flood Recovery

It has been a busy last few weeks here in Mainprize. There has been a lot of jobs taken on, but most have been finished successfully. The weather has also smartened up for us and been quite hot and dry lately, which is a great change.

One quick not so positive thing to touch on. On the evening of August 22 there was some vandalism done to number 13 green. There was a total of 28 gouges taken out of the putting surface. It is really hard for us to see this happen as a maintenance department because we really do take pride in trying our best to provide our customers with the best possible conditions that we can. So it hurts to see someone go out and abuse all of our hard work.

Some of the gouges on 13 green

We received our new Toro 1250 sprayer on September 5. We have used the sprayer three times so far since we have received it and have been very happy with its performance. Our 15 year old John Deere sprayer was beginning to show its age and mechanical issues unfortunately were becoming very common. Having this new sprayer gives us the peace of mind that we will be able to use our sprayer and know that it will do exactly what it should. The sprayer is definitely one of the most important pieces of equipment that we have, especially given the large amount of disease that the course has had lately.

Our new sprayer

We finally after many delays began the seeding process on the 2011 flooded holes 4, 5, 6, and 7 on Thursday, August 22. We completed seeding on Wednesday, September 4. For this process we used a hydroseeder. The first thing we did was put out the seed using our big overseeder behind a tractor on fairways and rough. For greens and tees we pushed a drop seeder to put the seed out. We then worked the seed into the root zone mixture using our John Deere bunker rake. We then finished by putting a hydroseed mixture out over the entire area. The hydroseed mixture contained mulch, tackifier and fertilizer. The mulch is used to protect the seed, hold in moisture to keep the seed moist, and to help hold the seed in place in wind and rain. The tackifier is the sticky substance that holds the mulch and seed down against any environmental elements. And the fertilizer is used to provide food for the seed to germinate and once it is becoming established also. 

Seven fairway after seed and hydroseed applied

It has almost been a week now since the last area was seeded. I am happy to report that the grow-in process is going quite well. The earlier areas that we had seeded have lots of growth and are filling in quite nicely. But even our most recent areas are germinating well now and are looking like they should turn out well. For the rest of this process now it is basically up to the irrigation system to do its job and keep the seed wet. We will probably begin cutting some of the greens and tee boxes in a little less than a week and some fairways will be first cut in a couple weeks.

Germination five days after seeding

Seven days after seeding

Seven fairway 15 days after seeding

It is hard to believe that it will be the middle of September very soon and that the golf course season wrap-up tournament is this weekend already. The season has went by very fast. We will hope that the nice weather continues far into the fall so that we can accomplish a lot more on the course before winter and be able to keep golfing for a while yet. It has definitely been a weird year this year but I believe it has been very successful. We have accomplished a lot of major projects and the course is just looking better and better every day.

Hole 3

Rain, Rain Go Away

Well the rain has continued for us just like it has all summer. It has made our job just a little bit harder this year. Plus, it has definitely pushed back the start and completion dates on a lot of our projects for the year. This past Thursday we received 2.25" of rain in about 40 minutes. As you can imagine the course was completely drenched after this. 

Water coming off the course by #13 green

Water laying in front of #2 tee

The big problem that the rain has caused is once again delaying us from getting all the seed out in the flooded valley. This project is now months behind. We are now finally in a bit of a heat wave so things should dry up quick and if everything goes as planned we will finally get the seed in the ground beginning next week. 

#5 green complex ready for seed after roto-tilling

Irrigation in the valley is operational now

Unfortunately our irrigation system has been acting up these past two weeks. We have had a total of 6 breaks in the last two weeks now. The breaks, which is the usual case, were all saddles that had broken free from the pipe. This is a common problem for us because when the irrigation system was installed they did not use stainless steel bolts on the saddles so they are now rusting over time and breaking free.

A break that was found behind #11 green

Although we have had some problems this year, overall it has been a quite successful golf season. The golf course is now getting busier than it had been in past years and we are continuing to improve the overall conditioning of the course every day compared to the past. We will look to have a successful rest of the summer and fall and once again be in a great position to be very successful next season. 

Looking down #10 fairway