Tomorrow (October 20th) will be the last day to
play Greywalls for the season.
The Original closing date was Sunday but the weather (rain) has
put us behind schedule.
I will need to take advantage of the weather on Sunday to
start making our winter fungicide applications.
Five more staff members will be laid off for the winter this week. I will need their help blowing leaves on Sunday
so I have a clean surface to spray onto.
Once those applications are completed on the
Greens/Tees/Approaches/Fairways we need to eliminate traffic in those areas to
prevent any tracking or foot/tire removal of the product. We have long winters of snow cover in Marquette and we need to
take every precaution to ensure survival of our turfgrass over the winter
months. Unlike many areas in the
country, we do not have the ability to reapply a product during the winter
because of our sustained snowfall levels; it is a one and done
application. We need to make sure it is
done and done right the first time around.
Using our one 175 Gallon sprayer it takes me 10 tanks to
spray the Greywalls course and I must have light to no wind and no rain to
complete the applications. Prior to
spraying the Tees we must fill every divot
with our seed/sand/fertilizer divot mix.
Two days after spraying Greens and Approaches we will heavily topdress
the Greens with sand and make a dormant application of milorganite to aid in
spring snow/ice melt. The next step is
roping off the greens to prevent any winter activity traffic from entering the
green surface areas. We will be
winterizing the Greywalls irrigation system on the 29th so that
gives me one week to fit all of this in before I have no water source on
Greywalls.
Snow fencing around some select areas is our last step to
proper winterization of the golf course.
When completed on Greywalls I will move the winterization operation
over to the Heritage and do it all over again on that course (déjà vu for me). We have a city water supply line to the
Heritage shop so I am able to fill up the rig without a charged irrigation system
(that system was winterized this week).
There is a ton to do this time of year (and I never even
touched on equipment winterization procedures) and it all must be completed
properly so we increase our chances of having a very successful spring golfing
season in 2013.
We do things now for the future.