Thursday, February 5, 2009

Snow Removal


With the upcoming warm weather I have had a few concerns lately with the amount of snow and ice on the greens. This is a picture of 15 green and before the 6 inches of snow was removed there was an additional 4 inches of ice. There is plenty of research showing that bentgrass will survive under ice and snow for at least 60 days and this is actually a good insulator, but my concerns really is were is all this snow and ice going to go. The problem that we have had in the past is the melting snow turns into ice and then this can cause some damage to the crowns of the turf. If we were to have some very cold days after the melt we could have what is called crown hydration or freezing of the crown. I believe in years past including last years damage to some of the greens this has happened. The big question that I have is what to do.
I made the decision to remove the layer of snow only down to the ice on a few of the greens that we have had problems in the past. The process was done by using a snow blower and worked very well. What I am trying to accomplish is remove the snow to allow the sun to melt the ice and then allow the water to flow without restrictions off the green. We can see in this picture that I am channeling through almost 4 feet of snow down to the drains.I believe this will help remove some of the standing water over the weekend.

Do I think everything will be ok, Like I have said before it is hard to tell but I am sure by Monday we will all have a better understanding of the condition of the golf course.

I will say the small amount of turf that I have been able to see looks really good

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