Agronomy Department and Course Weekly Update

January 23, 2014

 Burr…. This is really shaping up as a cold winter! We have already exceeded the number of hours below 32 degrees from last year by a whopping 251%.

The covers were pulled Tuesday morning ahead of the high winds.   Prior to pulling covers, the Agronomy Team ran 10 minutes of water on the greens.  One of the biggest concerns is desiccation (drying out) of the plant during the winter, which can lead to winterkill.  Since the greens will be covered for at least 5-7 days, we needed to make sure the plant was sufficiently hydrated.

With the greens covered the majority of the week the focus will be on winter projects.  Some of the items on our list include: under brushing, irrigation repairs, landscape planting, trimming miscanthis, pruning crape myrtles, mowing fairways, leaf removal, drainage repair, painting ball washers and removing fans. We obviously won’t finish all of these projects this week but we should make a big dent. 

I can’t wait until the weather turns and we see y’all back on the course!

  If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at kmacdonald@valleycrest.com and for more information follow us on Twitter @stivescc_vcsup and the Blog: http://vcgmstivescountryclub.blogspot.com/

See y’all on the course,

Kyle Macdonald, Class A, GCS