HIGHLAND CC GROUNDS

Here at Highland we treat our greens, tees and fairways with a winter protection fungicide. The rough on the property is far to vast to treat with these rather costly fungicides. Therefore every spring we experience rather heavy snow mould infection in the rough. Above is a picture of the tee bank on #15. On the left you can see where the fungicide was applied and protected (for the tee surface). On the right is the result of severe disease infection on unprotected turfgrass. The rough will come back once the warmer temperatures arrive and some air and sunshine get down to the plants. But it is definitely set back from the treated areas.

This week marked the first of spring, but it sure doesn't feel like it. With expected snow and freezing rain we have held off on course clean up until next week. The golf course has wintered relatively well considering the extreme winter that the London area experienced. All of the snow has melted with the exception of some in the bunkers and very low lying areas. The turf looks good in the treated areas for the most part. The fungicide that we have traditionally used for snow mould protection on fairways (Quintozene) has been removed from the market by the regulatory agencies of Canada (PMRA). With this on the horizon, we decided to use a couple of different products in order to make a more educated decision for our next winter protection applications. The newer products are of a more precise and advanced technology. These products are a blend of fungicides that have multiple modes of action. This means that they are protecting the turf grass in multiple ways. The advantage to thi