Winter Greens Preparation Redwood Meadows Golf and Country Club

Heath Koch

Golf Course Superintendent (C.G.S.A)
Redwood Meadows Golf and CC
Bragg Creek, Alberta, Canada
www.redwoodmeadows.com

We are located about 15 minutes west of Calgary in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Our greens are Poa Annua and Pencross creeping bentgrass mix. (55/45) We get a good amount of snow fall that will stay on the course from around the start of November till the end of April. With our location we get a number of Chinooks throughout the winter months that can bring our temperatures up from -10C to +15C over night. This causes a lot of problems with freeze thaw cycles that we need to be very careful with.

Around the beginning of September the heights of our greens will start being raised. We will go from .100 to about .120 around the middle to end of September and our first fungicide application will be applied. Greens heights will get up around the .16 or so to end out the season.

During this time we supplement our greens cutting with rolling almost every day. Throughout the month of September the greens heights are continually being raised till around the 2nd week in October when the mowing slows down significantly. We will then only roll daily and mow 1-2 times per week to pickup pine needles, leaves, and lose debris off the greens. By now we are experiencing frost on a regular if not daily basis keeping us off the greens most days till around 11:00am. By the middle of October we have blown all the water from our irrigation system and our now only hand watering greens as required. We are now watching the weather and will put down our final application of fungicide and our topdressing will also take place. At this time we will wait till weather looks like things are going to stay cool and cold and just prior we will start our tarping process.

Tarping:
My tarping system consists of bubble wrap and a solid tarp.
-Bubble Wrap- 10mm 1 inch bubbles 12 ft x 100 ft rolls
-Various solid impermeable tarps.

In order to keep the freeze thaw cycles to a minimum we use a system where we put down a heavy topdressing then bubble wrap then a solid tarp. This also keeps any moisture off the green throughout the winter making sure that we don’t see any ice directly on the turf. Once the turf has hardened off and is relatively frozen we start by unrolling the bubble wrap and stapling it directly to the turf (bubble side down) after this we lay our solid tarps over top. These tarps must go over the surrounds on all the high sides in order to prevent water from making its way under the tarping system. These tarps are nailed down every 1 ½ ft with 12 inch spikes and washers on top. The tarp is pulled tight and where two tarps are needed and we lay them like shingles so as to keep water running off the lower sides.

Our greens at Redwood Meadows have some low areas that in the past have experienced significant winter kill. With the bubble wrap applied and the tarps in place any moistures from melting episodes throughout the year is kept on top the tarp on top the bubble wrap. The bubble wrap acts as a insulating layer and with the bubbles facing downward it provides pockets for air and gases to enter and exit. This new tarping system had proven to be a very beneficial tool in keeping our green alive throughout our strange and tough winters.

If you would like to see more photos or learn more about tarps, please drop me an email. lsharp@tee-2-green.com