Is winter ever going to end?

Hopefully everyone is reading this blog from some place where it is 75 and sunny!  It is anything but that here at the golf course.  We are still working through our fleet of equipment and the end is in sight.  We have serviced all four of our turf gators, pictured below, and they are ready for the hauling of stone, sand and mulch when spring finally arrives!

Our tow behind blower has also been serviced and cleaned.  This piece of equipment does an outstanding job of moving leaves, small sticks and debris that has accumulated after the snow and ice from winter.  It is also run from a remote that can increase of decrease the rpm's and rotate the shoot on the back!

 

Trailer repair has kept us busy as well.  Our trailer that transports the sod cutter was in need of some new bearings and seals.  The old bearings were pretty rusted and the seals were shot.  Here is a picture of the axle before the new parts were assembled.



We also have two trailers to transport our walk mowers and they too have been worked on.  These trailers have been sanded down to remove some rust, then were primered and painted.

New tounges were made because the old ones were rusted out and too short in length.  Here are a couple pics comparing the old and new.

Push mowers have been serviced and cleaned.  Here are the two mowers, these don't take a whole lot of time to go through.

Last but not least, our aerifiers.  These play a vital role in the health of our turf during the golf season.  They can be used on greens, tees or fairways and the tines can be switched out from solid to hollow in an array of sizes.   They are transported throughout the course by hitches that Brad had made last winter.  That man can make and repair just about anything!

Here are some pictures of our solid needle tines that are used to vent the greens during the season.  This process allows for improved gas exchange in the root zone while at the same time improving surface drainage resulting in a firmer, healthier putting surface.



The hollow or "coring tines" are used to remove thatch and organic matter in the root zone, these are more aggressive than the solid tines and turf recovery usually takes a little longer.  These tines can vary is size from as small as 1/4" to as large as 7/8" depending on the location on a golf course and the severity of your thatch layer.  We typically do our coring in the fall, but early enough to have full recovery before shoot growth stops.  If the ground is not too saturated, spring can also be an opportune time to do aerification.  Here are some pics of new tines vs. old tines.  As you can see, they can wear down a great deal even after just one aerification job.













Mid-February thaw!

With the warmer temperatures this past week we were able to actually make a trip through the course without getting stuck and what we found was very typical for this time of year. 
It looked as though we had a decent amount of traffic this winter from cross country skiiers.  Here is a nice set of tracks right across one of our greens.....not recommended!  However, with spring growth and a bit of fertilizer, the tracks will disappear with no damage.

There were also a few foursomes that found their way to the course as well! Here are some close-up pictures of the effects of deer traffic on frozen greens during the winter. 

The deer traffic is a little more severe than the skiier traffic because of the depth of the impression on the green.  This is because the weight of the skiier was more evenly distributed across the length of the ski, where as the weight of the deer is only distributed over a couple of inches, or the length of the hooves.
Here are a couple more pics of deer traffic.

We also found a couple of drains that began to erode around the edges.  These will need to be dug up and concrete will be added to the drainage tile connections that have gaps in them.  As you can see in this picture, the ground has settled a couple of inches and will need to be raised after the repair is made. 

We have checked the status of the satellite box between holes #2/7 to see if moving the box to higher ground has paid off by keeping the box and its electrical contents out of standing water.  Here is a picture of the box, notice the ice and snow piled up where the box used to be.  It appears to have been a successful move, so far so good!

Microdochium Patch, a.k.a. snow mold, is visible on some locations throughout the course, none of which appear to be severe.  Microdochium Patch is a mold that can cause pink, yellow or tan patches measuring from 1 to 8 inches in diameter, these patches can coalesce into larger patches if severe enough.  This mold can be spread via water movement as well as foot or cart traffic.  Disease severity can be reduced by reducing thatch through aerification and verticutting, as well as reducing shade and leaf wetness.  In more severe cases a contact fungicide may be applied to reduce disease pressure, especially on highly maintained turf such as a golf green.  Here is a picture of the disease in one of our fairways.  The white around the edge of the patch is actually the reproductive spores, they can be either white or salmon in color. 

This all but too brief thaw is a reminder that spring is getting closer, so it's time to start thinking golf!  Dust off your clubs and we hope to see you out here on the course in the near future!

THINK SPRING!

I know it's hard to believe with the cold weather this week, but we should be mowing grass in about 35 days!  With spring not too far off we are still making good progress here in the maintenance department.

Currently we are working on our sand pro and we have replaced the raking tines on the back end.  Brad has had to take out the transmission because there was a small leak around the seals.  Here are some pics of the new and old tines.   We replace these things twice a year because the sand really wears down the tips!

The next pictures are of the back side of the sand pro and the transmission case.  Notice the two black circles in the case, that is where the oil was leaking.

We have also finished grinding the reels and bedknives on our walk mowers, sanded down the rust on our trailers and repainted them.

The trash cans, barricades and concrete yardage markers have all been cleaned and repainted.  They look good and will be put back on the course in March!

Last but not least are the weed whackers.  Spark plugs and air filters have been checked and cleaned if needed and they are ready to do some work!  Here is a before and after pic.