Text Book

The past two days have certainly been favorable to clear greens. The 15th and 16th are now clear and they look really good. However, we have found a couple of text book examples of snow mold. Looking at the mycelium in this picture is one for all turf geeks. There were a handful of them on the 16th green.

The forms of snowmold we are finding are not lethal to the plant. They may slow the development of the plant in spring, but with the snow removed, the healing process will begin. A light fungicide application is made to the greens to prevent the spread of the disease from future snow falls.

Snowmold Trials

Dr. Ned Tisserat and Tamla Blunt from the Plant Diagnostic Clinic at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins continue their research with snowmold on golf courses. Vail Golf Club is one of the courses used for their research due to our high disease pressure. This widespread wintertime disease due to the duration of snow cover in the north can severely damage turfgrass if not treated correctly.

Vail Golf Club has a long standing relationship with the University and for numerous years has committed turfgrass plots on the 14th fairway for research. This year, for the first time, Dr. Tisserat and Ms. Blunt are using the 3 year old nursery green located on the 14 th hole. They will continue to use fairway turf on the 14th hole to continue with their years of research.

There are many different formulas and treatments applied within the given areas. Various chemical companies donate their products to be used for these trials. Vail Golf Club benefits from the information gathered each year to determine the best approach to combat snowmold.

Snowmold And More Snow

Now here is a great specimen of snowmold. We found this on the first green the other day after some melting. It looks like recent activity with the recent warm weather and melting off periods. Only a turf geek like myself can really appreciate this.

Snowmold is a soil borne pathogen that occurs after prolonged periods of snow cover. During recent warm temperatures, it fuels this disease to become more active. Usually snowmold is not a threat to turf loss, moreover a threat to early season playing conditions.

Applying fungicides at this point will only potentially prevent the spread of the disease. Only warmer soil temperatures, aerification, and fertilizer will remedy this situation.

Vail Golf Club has been a snowmold test site for Colorado State University for years now. Every year they research how different chemicals respond to our winters here in Vail and try to come up with the most effective solutions.

Seeing the above picture remind's me that the greens are still only "human". They are a living and breathing environments and constantly need attention. All in all this is like a scrape on the knee and soon will be forgotten, but I welcome the challenge to continue with research and development to further solve this problem.

Thursday through Saturday this week the forecast is for mostly cloudy conditions and possibly a few inches of snow. Here on the course it snowed most of the day yesterday with very little accumulation. We are looking forward to the sunshine come Sunday and Monday.