Leading The Pack

Yesterday was officially the beginning of the end. The most important part of maintaining this golf course is properly preparing it for the long winter's nap. Vail Golf Club will be one of the first golf courses in the country to arrive at winter, so here is what we are doing.
We applied our greens and approaches with Iprodione and Cholorthalonil fungicides to prepare for the winter stress. They are both contact fungicides which will assist keeping the plant clean as we approach periods of moisture in the fall. Over time, we have seen the best results with early applications.
Our second application in approximately 30 days, will consist of  a systemic and contact fungicide. The systemic brand will help protect the plant from the inside before the plant shuts down for the winter. After aerification, about the middle of October, a final application will be made per usual for greens and approaches to prepare for the long winter.
Different products will be used on the fairways and tees. Those applications will come in October.

Golf Course Industry : The cold facts about snow mold

It is always hard to think of the winter for any golfer or superintendent in August, but in the mountains you always have to be prepared. I came across this article the other day and we believe that there is a lot of truth to what they find in this article. This might be more of an article for turf managers, but highly important for golfers to understand.
Click here for Golf Course Industry article.

The Big Melt

It has been about 2 months since we have cleared our first greens out here and the recovery and growth has been some of the best I have seen. The added moisture and few days of sun we have had in that amount of time has been very beneficial to the grass.
Posted here is a picture of the 12th green making a recovery of on pink snow mold that was discovered when cleared last month. Oxygen, sunlight and water are all the correct ingredients for growing grass.
Some greens have some bumpy spots due to the snow blower. Once the course is clear and accessible we will aerify, topdress and fertilize to get them into playing condition.
I would say we are approximately 40% clear, with more snow in the forecast for this weekend.
Next week's weather is looking very favorable with plenty of sunshine. I was just on the 5th fairway and recorded 3 feet of snow up there. The big melt is on.

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.