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.
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)...
Are we still headed for an April 15 opening?
ReplyDeleteUnless the weather takes a dramatic turn for the better, we would be pushing it to open by the 15th. We still have snow on 50% of our greens covers. Please check in with the blog to see forecasted opening dates...
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