Dialing In

As we progress through winter, I along with Nathan and Moe review our practices and work to make things better.  This will be the third season with our newly grassed greens.  Our first few years were based on establishment of the green as a structured whole; working on root and turf density, root depth, and overall health of the greens.  Programs were on trial basis to see how certain things work. Starting 2014 we feel we've got our base to a solid maintenance and playability program and we'll be dialing things in.  Greens performance has always been a factor but with new greens health trumps playability.  This season playability is going to be a large priority with consistency a high focus.  Over this last week I've developed a form that we will use to gather data for our greens.  Evaluating the performance in regards to climatic and maintenance events will help us make decisions to continue or improve current measures.  Included here is the form that we'll use:

Other items that may be included with this recorded data would be spray applications.

I think by using such technical information will benefit our knowledge but primarily our greens performance.  I look very forward to utilizing this system.

Upcoming this week we have a full task list.  Tree pruning is the biggest task at hand but we also have some cleanup work from our latest removals.  Accompanying tree work we have some snow and ice removal to do.  Cleaning off drains and digging some channels through snow for melted material to drain will be a labor intensive task.  Always up to something.  Below are some photos from the course today.