Turf from a turf student's perspective

Preparing for Canada’s Winter

The 2009 golf course season has winded down pretty fast and superintendents and assistants are preparing their course for the winter season.  Due to the extended amount of warmth this fall, some courses have extended their closing date but they will still have to prepare very fast for the winter.  You need to winterize your equipment, your irrigation system needs to be blown out and you need to prepare your greens as well as the rest of the golf course.

The winterizing of equipment for the winter includes going through it’s components including the engines, ignition systems, cooling systems, transmissions, hydraulic systems & carburetors.  The irrigation blow out is the blowing out of the water lines, so that no water is frozen in the pipes over the winter.  Some superintendents like to cover their greens for the winter and some like the leave them be.  It all depends on where your are located and the type of winter you experience.  Ideally you want to prevent your greens and turf in general from low-temperature kill as well as  ice damage and traffic on the frozen and slushy turf.

Going into the winter I can see turfgrass professionals being very concerned about their course making it through the winter season and how it will come out of it.  I believe that if certain steps are taking such as tarping of greens & winter overseeding then their are ways to make sure that your course will sustain the winter.  I am looking forward to the experience and challenge in the future preparing turfgrass for the harsh Canadian winters.

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