Early warm up.

It seems the mild winter is giving way to a warmer than average March. Yesterday, we hit 70 degrees and a few of you were out on the course getting in some early rounds. While it's unusual to be this warm, it is allowing us to pick up where we left off at the end of last year; we are ahead of schedule and should continue that way so long as the warm, dry-ish weather continues. We've already started hiring people for this season and are anxious to wrap up the winter projects and get into the season.

For those of you who have played, I'm sure you noticed the pond left of #9 green had some work done to it. What we are trying to do here is give ourselves a bit of a water reservoir in case of a drought. We added some depth to the pond and installed a valve which will allow us to transfer water to the irrigation pond between #10 and #18. We are able to feed this pond (at #9) with wells located at the driving range so, if we ever do drain it, we will be able to refill it within a few days. Beyond the function, it will also be much more aesthetically pleasing, offering a better view of the course from the clubhouse.

Coming out of winter the course is in pretty good shape and considering how mild the winter was, this is no surprise. We had a little microdochium patch develop on two of the fairways but, outside of that, things look pretty good. Once the weather warms up a bit the grass will quickly outgrow the damage from this disease, just like it has in past years. Besides that, there is a fair amount of tree litter we need to pick up, but overall we are in good shape. I'm not sure if you guys would notice this, but there is less tree litter every year as we removed the unhealthy and dead trees that are dropping their dead limbs.

#14 Fairway

If this warm weather continues, and based on the forecast it will, we're going to be pretty busy pretty quick. As the course starts to break dormancy, so do the pests and weeds that we try to control with our plant health products. A lot of these weeds and insects show up after so many days of warm weather and a measurement has been developed called Growing Degree Days. Some of these pests have been found to show up after a certain number of GDD and MSU has a website that helps us track them. This GDD Tracker helps us time applications for insects, weeds and diseases that we are trying to control. It's a nice tool and one you can use too for anything you're trying to control in your home lawns. This is one of the tools we use along with traps to monitor annual bluegrass weevils, soil probes, moisture meters and daily scouting for any problems that may be developing. Spring is a busy time of year for us so, the more tools we have to help us time our applications for maximum efficacy the better.

Weevil Traps. Annual bluegrass weevils overwinter in leaf litter. This trap allows us to monitor population levels as they exit the woods and head toward the course. As populations peak, we spray to maximize effect of the application.

Ian