Prairie Rejuvenation

     The ability for some of our prairie/native areas to continue to stay in balance and thrive depends on careful management.  The area behind the 7th green is a mix of prairie grasses, wildflowers, and some wetland plants that are planted along the waters edge.  The use of prescribed burns are a useful tool to remove old prairie thatch, to reduce woody plant invasion, and to stimulate the growth of many native grasses and wildflowers.  This year we were scheduled to do such a burn and we took about 45 minutes on thursday and friday to take care of the two areas.

   

     While we were burning on Friday we noticed some visitors in the pond on the 7th hole.

A pair of Trumpeter Swans

Practice Facility and Golf Course Opening

The Practice Facility will open today and the golf course is set to open at 11:00 a.m. Wednesday, March 31st.  We will be operating with our 4 person staff until the second week of April.  We feel that over-all the golf course is in pretty good shape and people will enjoy getting the season started.  Most of our focus will be on completing the debris (sticks and small branches) cleanup from the trees we removed this winter.  We are planning to have the greens mowed and bunkers raked.  We will keep you posted on our progress!

Turf conditions on a tour of the south end of the golf course were similar to the north.  Tees and greens look great with only superficial snow mold on some fairways and some isolated turf loss in low areas of fairways.

  These are photos of the forward tee on #16.  Again you can see the difference between treated and un-treated turf.  There is a perfect rectangle around the tee.

Another notable item from my walk was how the leveling of the rough that we did 2 1/2 years ago has held up.  These photos are of the left rough on #11 (new).  You will notice how the fairway has mild frost heaving will the rough has virtually none.  The frost heaving this year is overall a lot milder but there is still a noticable difference.

This is more Vole damage located between the practice green and the cart path the goes to the practice tee.

Spring Condition
Spring is here and after a tour of the north half of the golf course yesterday things appear in pretty good shape.  Most of the snow is gone and the turf overall looks like it weathered the winter.  The most noticeable things you find in a year when you have heavy snow cover are Vole damage and Snow Mold damage.  This year we have both in abundance.  Voles are small rodents that are basically field mice.  The Voles that we have are most likely Meadow Voles.

The Snow Mold I have found has been mostly isolated to rough areas that were not treated with a preventative fungicide application.  It tends to be superficial on longer grass but can kill especially when it attacks finer turfed areas like greens, tees, or fairways.  When I say superficial I mean the damage is on the leaf blades not down at the growing point (crown of the plant).  Once the plant becomes active it will push the damage out until the blades are long enough that the mowers can cut it off.  I have found some isolated areas in fairways where we have some Snow Mold but none on tees or greens.  The best thing is for these areas to dry out and then be raked or somehow disturbed to break up the matted material.  The same applies for your home lawns but make sure you wait until the turf and surface are dry. 

The photo on the left is of the 14th tee box and it shows you the difference between treated and untreated turf.  There are some years when no application may be needed due to little disease pressure.  This senario plays out when we have little snow cover and dry conditions well into the spring.  You really only get a small window of opportunity to make a decision that will need to last 5 months.  I have witnessed what happens to fine turfed areas when they are not protected and conditions are favorable for disease.  The below photos will give you some idea.

The frost seems to be hit or miss in the fairways which is typical for our peat.  In probing the greens what I have found so far is about 7 inches of thawed ground followed by 12-16 inches of frozen soil.  The quickest way for this frost to thaw is to get some good rains.  Once the frost has left the greens and the surface has firmed up we typically give the green light for golfers to play.  It is very important that the surface is stable so that we do not cause damage to the playing surface or potential damage to the root system.  Fairways typically take quite a bit longer to firm up as the peat tends to hold frost and excess moisture.  We allow for foot traffic on these areas as any damage to the surface is easily repaired.  Also the root systems tend to be larger and are not exposed to the same pressures that the greens are throughout the summer.  I will be touring the south half of the course this afternoon to see if the higher, heavier soiled fairways came through in similar condition.

"Great Seminar"

   I don't often put the words great and seminar together when talking about attending a seminar but I spent the last two days at the Minnesota Golf Course Superintendent's March Seminar and it was.  It was two days filled with great speakers and some good discussion held right here at Dellwood Hills Golf Club.  The first day the topic was Sustainable Golf Course Maintenance with two Superintendents speaking about things they have done at their facilities and finishing with a panel discussion of 6 superintendents speaking about what they are doing to be more sustainable.

   The first superintendent from Kentucky spoke about how they have been making their own biodiesel fuel and how they have modified some of their equipment to burn vegetable oil as a fuel source.  He also spoke of how his facility has been able to collect water from the neighboring community and use it to irrigate the golf course .  They catch storm water as well as the effluent water from all of the septic systems of the surrounding houses.  The second superintendent from Florida spoke about the need for our industry to be leaders in taking care of the environment and being more vocal in letting the public know about our efforts.  He talked about the things that his staff has implemented at their golf course that not only benefit the environment but  make good business sense.  The afternoon panel discussion about Sustainable Golf Course Maintenance I will talk more about in subsequent blogs, so stay tuned.

   The second day of the seminar was on Winter Injury.  We had Dr. Brian Horgan from the University of Minnesota and Dr. Kevin Frank from Michigan State University talk about causes of winter injury and the best methods for recoverying.  We had Drew Larson give a presentation on the winter covers study he did for his Masters.  Bob Distel, Superintendent from Wayzata had a segment to talk about how they have used a heated tent to recover some of their greens very rapidly in the spring after they sustained severe winter injury.  And finally we had two people at the end of the day talk about the use of wildflowers and no-mow grasses to establish native areas on the golf course.  Usually my hope when attending one of these educational sessions is to take home one or two items that I can use to make myself or our operation better.  This seminar was packed full of great information as well as some great challenges to think "outside the box".
I thank the club for supporting myself and my staff in continuing our education and betterment.

Simple Tools Make Work Much Easier

    I am going to start this entry with another look at the tree next to 18 green.  I will show you some more signs that the tree is not doing well.  In these photos you can see some more cavity decay and some woodpecker damage. 

   Woodpecker holes don't always tell you that a tree is dead or dying but they tend to work on dead wood.  There are woodpeckers called Sapsuckers that do exactly that.  They feed on the sap of a tree or the insects that are attracted to the sap.  These woodpeckers like live trees and you can tell that they are Sapsuckers by the pattern they leave.  They leave tight rows of holes.  This damage can girdle a tree and kill it.  Woodpeckers will also use trees to do their territorial drumming in the Spring.

This photo shows Dan Hamel with Tree Works using what looks like a large wristrocket on a stick.  He uses this to get his rope up high into the tree canopy.  He has a long thin string that is attached to a weighted bag.  He puts the bag into the slingshot and fires it up into the top of the tree.

   He attaches the string to his rope and pulls it up over the limb. He uses this to secure himself to the tree to do his work.  These guys are fearless and extremely talented.