Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Winterization

The Winterization process on both golf courses was a big success.  The weather cooperated wonderfully and everything was completed.  It is now up to Mother Nature to be kind to us over the next 4 months.  

All greens-tees-approaches-fairways were treated with a fungicide to eliminate severe snowmold damage.  This is actually a picture of our new sprayer delivery in November; which will start to be used next season.  Having this new 300 gallon sprayer will allow us to reduce our application window.  We are going to start PGR and foliar fertilizer applications on the Greywalls fairways next year using our old 175 gallon sprayer along with this new rig.  

The blower crew out making sure every leaf is off the surface in front of me as I spray the protective fungicides. 

Both irrigation systems were winterized Using large compressors to blow all of the water out of the irrigation lines.  
The process takes 3 days on the Heritage, 2 days on Greywalls and a couple hundred gallons of Diesel fuel.  

We rented a diesel heated power washer this fall to detail clean our equipment.  This rental proved to be a huge time saver while providing better results.  A process which we will continue to do every fall.  
After the equipment is power washed it is important to grease every zerk to make sure water is not left in these areas over the winter months.  

After spraying the greens/approaches/tees we then topdress them heavily with sand.  This sand layer insulates and protects the plant crowns from low winter temperatures and winter wind.  
Following the heavy sand topdressing is an application of Milorganite.  This black organic fertilizer helps melt the snow and ice on the green surfaces in the spring and jump start our turf.  
Here is a close up picture of our surfaces after the sand and Milorganite has been applied.  Just the tips of the grass is exposed.  

We hosted UW again on our Heritage golf course for a snowmold research study.  We are honored to have them on site researching different fungicides and fungicide combinations.  The data collected helps golf courses everywhere survive the harsh winter months.  




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