Weather Wins and Losses

WIN...
With temperatures in the teens overnight last weekend we arrived to frozen ground on Monday.  Winds were calm, the sun popped out, and it turned out to be a great day.  This was what the forecast predicted and so our plan to spray fairways worked perfectly.  We were able to get most of the zoysia sprayed for unwanted winter weeds (mainly poa annua).  This is a very important and difficult to complete task every winter.  We need one more day of perfect conditions to complete this task.  

LOSS...
The forecast also predicted a rainy week starting Tuesday.  For that reason we chose to apply a fertilizer to greens on Monday.  We used an organic product which would, we hoped, get ample rains and be relatively undetectable when the skies cleared up and golfers returned.  The 80-100% chance of rain on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday brought less than 1/10th of an inch and did nothing to help rinse in the fertilizer.  My apologies for those playing in the morning if there is any dew or moisture on the turf.  You'll have to keep a towel handy for a few days as the fertilizer will stick to your putter and golf ball when the ground is wet.  I knew I was rolling the dice when I decided to trust the forecast.  We hope to fire up the irrigation system next week after the cold snap this weekend moves out.  That will allow us to get water on any remaining fertilizer.  Prices are extreme and supplies are limited so I went with what we had on hand.  It should be a big help for spring recovery, but I now remember why I don't like organic fertilizer on greens unless it's during aeration.  

The good news is the winter weeds we sprayed on Monday are already dying.  The bad news is the fertilizer we applied on Monday is still sitting there waiting to get dissolved.  

We kept the tree train rolling and cleaned up some messes on 1,2,12,15, and 17 so far this week.  These were mostly out of the way areas that were down towards the bottom of the priority list, but still very important to clean up.  We also started doing some stump clean up which we expect to take a good bit of time.  










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