Snow mold control and topdressing

On Monday and Tuesday we were able to spray 57+ Acres of greens, tees and fairways on both golf courses with our preventative snow mold fungicides. This is a huge application that needs to last 4+ months. The day after the snow mold fungicide was applied to the greens, a light/medium sand topdressing was put down to provide a little insulation to the crown of the plant in the winter.

Spraying snow mold fungicide on #2 Devlin Fairway.  The foam dots allow us to see what has been sprayed and what has not.

Ben Thomas topdressing #16 Weiskopf green

Ball marks

While spraying greens yesterday I noticed an overwhelming amount of ball marks on the greens. It is very important to fix ball marks as we are not out repairing and mowing everyday. Now that the snow mold application is down greens will no longer be mowed until spring.

#11 Green - Please repair

#18 Weiskopf - You can see how many unrepaired ball marks are in this small area

Deep Tine

We finished the deep tine on the Devlin greens yesterday afternoon. We have an outside company(PerkAir) come in with two machines to get it done in one day. The Devlin greens are old "push-up" greens meaning they are made out of native soil pushed up to shape them. Deep tining allows air and water to break through a hard pan layer and create channels. We go down around 6-7 inches and it makes a huge difference in the spring. We lightly topdress, drag and roll the putting surface after the deep tining. If we continue with this warm weather and get a little growth we will topdress again to protect the crown before winter weather hits.

Surface after deep tining, topdressing, dragging and rolling

#17 Devlin Green afterwards.  Looks great except for all the oak trees still with leaves on them