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Golf Course Update...



It seems that weather has been the topic of choice throughout the 2011 golf season. It certainly has been a season of extremes. Currently we are preparing for yet another onslaught of rain. Even a brief shower brings water to the surface, puddling on fairways, tees and some greens is evidence of the saturation point. Environment Canada is forecasting up to 50mm of rain between Tuesday night and Thursday afternoon. What does this mean to the golf course? What this means is that we will be under water! Current conditions are making it difficult for even daily maintenance to be completed. Today we are mowing everything that we possibly can. Growth has yet to slow down as we have not had cold temperatures or even a frost yet. Cart traffic has been severely limited in the past few weeks due to the saturation of the soil. We understand that this causes issues for players requiring carts, but the golf course simply cannot handle the cart traffic in these conditions. The wet conditions are a result of consistent, unrelenting rains coupled with the clay soil that HCC is built on (very heavy clay).

As mentioned earlier, it has been difficult for our staff to perform normal day to day fall maintenance on the golf course. Leaf blowing with carts and tractors has been minimal. We have utilized back pack blowers to the best of our ability (as tedious and labour consuming as it is!). Leaf mulching is normally a daily task, but has also been hindered by the elements. We have however been able to complete some of our cultural practices (topdressing has continued). In conditions like these it is even more prudent that we complete practices like deep tine aeration and fairway solid tine aeration. These practices help provide channels for water and air to travel down to and through the root systems. During saturated soil conditions pore space is severely restricted. We need to open up these soils and provide free draining air/water space.

We are all hoping for better weather ahead. Let's try to have a good last 4 weeks of the golf season!

*Just as a reminder we will be performing our Deeptine aeration of our greens on Monday, October 24th.



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