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| Winter Wonderland |
Welcome to the new year! A time when some of us turf managers anticipate great numbers, wonderful compliments and a perfect wintering of our golf courses?? Okay, well at least that's something I always try and look forward to every new year. We hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season filled with great food, lots of drink and close company. That time for us has quickly passed and it was back to work as usual.
We were welcomed by a 60cm snowfall our first week back. The plow truck and the snow blowers were in full force as we cleared entrance roads, maintenance paths and parking areas. I was always warned that it was inevitable to get our plow truck stuck and I never thought it would happen to me, until it did. I will admit that fresh plow lines are pretty tough after a big dump of snow, almost like cutting a straight line on a green with no dew...
"you gotta use the force!" as one super always told me.
We are into day 60 with a 2-5mm ice cover on some greens. Some ice more porous than others, but most have a reassuring dormant colour underneath. Early in December we did some trial melts with a GreenThaw machine. For those unfamiliar, glycol is circulated through lengths of hose at a warm to warmer temperature. The hose is extended and laid across the green to promote ice melt. In our trial, we completely cleared one green and three quarters of another with different patterns in laying out the hose.
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| Glycol hydraulic attachments |
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| Working from the centre out |
For our own purposes, we recently pulled plugs on several green sights, each selected by amount of Poa infestation and exposure to elements. We will monitor the plugs over some time to see what activity happens and then we can make decisions later. As a control sample, we will pull a few plugs from one of our newer bentgrass greens, that was installed this past spring.
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| Mostly Poa, pulled from different greens |
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| James removing a plug |
Some of the other tasks keeping us busy are: ordering new tools and supplies, repair and paint older supplies, team recruiting, and of course blogger. As you can see from the lack of our updates, I was only joking about our blog keeping us busy. Our goal is to recruit a team of 40 individuals for the season. This ensures that we can complete many of our planned projects and produce a product that our guests can all enjoy and appreciate. If you are reading this and you have an interest in working for a turfcare department at a great facility please visit the website or inquire by email to
assistantsuper@kananaskisgolf.com (a little recruiting plug never hurts...)
We are really looking forward to this new season and we hope that you are to. Take care and happy wintering!!
We were welcomed by a 60cm snowfall our first week back. The plow truck and the snow blowers were in full force as we cleared entrance roads, maintenance paths and parking areas. I was always warned that it was inevitable to get our plow truck stuck and I never thought it would happen to me, until it did. I will admit that fresh plow lines are pretty tough after a big dump of snow, almost like cutting a straight line on a green with no dew... "you gotta use the force!" as one super always told me.
