Skip to main content

Golf Course update...


Mild weather has returned this week (at least for a few days) and we are taking advantage of it. Today we put a little bit more fertilizer out in some of the rough areas that tend to be in "rough" shape come spring time (heavy shade, tree competition, poorly drained). We are also out topdressing approaches and the practice range tee. This application of sand will help protect the approaches from the drying winds of early winter. As many people have noticed from our twitter feed, last Wednesday we put down the permeable covers on our greens. It was a perfect day with sunshine and virtually no wind to speak of (wind can reak havoc on cover installation). With fall and early winter comes opportunities for professional developement. This week I will be attending a full day seminar in the Kitchener area. There will be talks concerning IPM, Turf disease diagnostics, renovation work performed at Toronto GC and an interesting lecture from Ed Farnsworth, the Golf Course Superintendent at the Deerhurst Resort. Mr. Farnsworth will be speaking about the behind the scenes experience of the G8 Summit meetings held at the resort earlier this season. Also on a more wintery note, the plow and salter are ready to go when ever mother nature decides to let the snow fly. Please continue to check the blog, I will be posting on the continued "ongoings" during the off season.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Greens Cultural Management Practices Schedule

The fall is a great time to perform a number of necessary cultural practices. Our goal is to amend the upper portion of the greens surface with enough sand to help insulate the crown through the winter as well as removing and diluting organic matter. Below you will find a schedule of cultural practices that we aim to complete before the covers go on and the snow flies!!! Wednesday, Sept. 30th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt Tuesday, Wednesday October 13/14-Course Closure full core aeration with heavy topdressing. October 19th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt October 26th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt November 2nd- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt November 9th- Deep Verticut, followed by a sufficient topdressing. November 16th- Post Course Closure, Heavy topdressing followed by Deep tine aeration. Of course this is all in hope that the weather cooperates...happy fall!
Post a Comment
Read more

Golf Course Update

As our season slowly comes to a end our department has been working away at year end projects. We installed drainage in a few areas of the practice range and short game area. These areas were perpetually wet and caused turf and aesthetic issues. We have also been chipping away at the bunkers on #17, smoothing out the faces and recreating the grass edges. These bunkers suffered some severe frost heaving in the faces during the winter after they were built. Our team has removed a number of trees and brush from around our maintenance facility to allow some expansion of our operation. We are working away at clearing space to install aggregate bins and sufficient staff parking. This will also allow delivery trucks and semi's to access our facility without any issues. We are also removing the fallen trees and brush from the woodlot on the right side of #16 fairway. This is a challenging area to work as it is a peat bog and remains wet even in the hottest and driest of summers (like 2010)...
1 comment
Read more

Venting Greens...

This week we will be venting our greens with needle tines. These tines make a hole that is less than an 1/8th of inch. With our greens being completely saturated from the incredible amount of rain that we have recieved this season, there is no room for air movement in the soil. We need to create very small channels for air movement to the root zone. When roots don't have air, they die. This has not been evident yet, but with the warmer temperatures of July upon us soon, trouble could be lurking. This will be a very non-disruptive process to our members and play. We are going to vent all of our greens over then next few days early in the morning as to not disrupt play. The process is simple, we vent the green using the aerifier and needle tines, roll them smooth and then mow the green. The holes virtually dissapear and are of no effect to roll. I realize that the word aerifier starts to scare people, but this is necessary and again is very clean and non-disruptive. Check out the pic...
1 comment
Read more