New Year - Difficult Weather

The weather always plays a role during the growing season but this year it has continued into the off-season as well. The club had a good snowfall on the 3rd of January followed by cold temperatures. The temperature soared to 50 degrees of the 6th along with an inch of rain which melted the all the snow creating puddles which froze that evening when temperatures dropped to zero and hovered in single digits for the next few days.  The rapid melting of snow and rain event followed by quick freezing can create a winter kill potential. Here is a link explaining in more detail what can happen http://www.gcsane.org/Golf/images/newsletter/2013NL/gcsane-newsletter-oct13.pdf.

I took advantage of the warm weather on the 6th before the rain started to topdress the greens again with sand. We have reached our goal of over 10 tons per acre of sand as our winter topdress program to help protect the crowns of the plant during the freeze/thaw cycles and cold temperatures. As the sand continues to work its way through the canopy with rain events more sand will be applied through the winter.

Greenwood Tree has taken advantage of the freezing temperatures to get out on the golf course and start our tree management program for this winter. Our main objective continues to be gaining more light and air movement around greens including 3, 5 and 6 greens. We have removed some additional White Pine on the 9th fairway in accordance with McNeil's plan as well as to allow the young Sugar Maples space to grow. A few declining trees were also removed in out-of-play areas and we are continuing to remove old material along the driveway replacing them with additional Crape Myrtle trees.

Greenwood Working behind 6 Green in the Snow