Spring has sprung.. or has it?!

After a warm and sunny Easter weekend winter has decided to try and make a comeback. This week has been cold, windy and a little wet at the Kamloops Golf Club, but mother nature hasn't dampened our spirits or hindered our turfcare practices. In the last 2 weeks we have been able to complete many of the tasks we had planned to carry out so far this year.

We sprayed our first foliar fertilizer application on our greens March 28th. This application included 3 products to target root growth and plant health, two areas we want to focus on in our bout with Take-all Patch. On April 4 we applied a granular fertilizer with a 12-24-8 content, also designed to generate plant roots and spring green up. April 4th was also our first application of fungicide to target Take-all Patch and prevent another spring outbreak. We will be spraying again in 3 weeks time as we stay on a preventative program.

Today we also did our first sand topdressing of the year for our greens. We applied the sand at a higher rate then we have in the past, followed by a roller with 2 double brushes to help push the sand into the turf canopy. We also irrigate the greens following the rolling/brushing to help push any remaining sand down into the turf canopy. As we continue to topdress more frequently we will help dilute our thatch layer, making water infiltration into the soil profile much more efficient, while making our greens firmer and smoother.

We have also been working on tweaking our aerator to undertake a light solid tine aeration in the next few weeks. We have experimented with a few different tines and spacings on our putting green and think we have found a good combination that will eliminate turf lifting while still allowing us to open the surface to get water and nutrients to the roots, while the turf will get he gas exchange needed for photosynthesis and root growth.

We are hoping to get our effluent line from the City of Kamloops up and running by the end of next week. Up until that point we will continue using what is left of our pond reservoir and conservatively watering our greens and tees as needed. Once we get the effluent going we can get started on topdressing our weak/dry fairway areas with a mixture of sand, peat and natures gold. These areas have already been core aerated and once topdressed with this mixture we will overseed and water. Hopefully with the added water holding capacity and air porosity of the sand and peat we will see more growth in these areas then we have in the past.

Below is a picture of the 3rd green at Sunrise on Good Friday. Lets hope for more weather like this in the weeks to come, although a bit of rain is good for the course!