As I took a trip around to do some cart path clearing, there is a little more snow on the greens then there was a few weeks ago. The only green that has a lot of snow ( more than a few inches) is #16.
You can see my scoop shovel in there down to the level of the turf. The handle is just above the top of the drift. This is why I am conducting my trial; to see if I can skip the mechanical removal of the 4 foot snow drift and apply something over the top to let the solar power melt this drift. It doesn't cover the entire green, just a portion. There is no ice layer under the drift, so I would run the risk of mechanical damage to the turf if I were to bring a blower onto the green to remove it.
I dug down to the turf and saw exactly what we want, great smelling turf with no ice cover and I can still see residue from the fall snow mold application on the leaf blades. The turf pigment that we used is a great marker of how uniform we sprayed last fall, and I will continue to use this product until they stop selling it or something new and improved with more plant benefits comes along!
I also went out to #11 green to check on it. This has been the green that I have been watching very closely this year due to an early formation of ice layer. The ice was opaque, so that is a good sign that it's not a very strong or a substantial amount of ice. Opaque ice will break up sooner and exchange some gasses with the underlying turf so it doesn't build up and harm the turf. Now this statement is just a hypothesis until spring rolls around and we can see exactly what condition the turf comes out in, but I am optimistic. I was contemplating removing the ice layer back in mid January, but with the frigid temps of Feb I am definitely glad I didn't. Here is a few pictures of 11 green shot today with my phone.
I am excited to see what I'm seeing under the small amount of snow we have this season. Brushing a little snow away reveals a great smelling turf with some good looking color left in it. You may be wondering, why is this guy smelling the turf? It's not because I LOVE the smell, it's because if you detect a hint of rotten egg smell, you have problems. The sulfurous smell means that there are trapped gasses under the ice and will usually lead to some turf loss. I have talked about Poa under winter conditions in earlier posts, so I'm not going into detail again on this subject.
Now onto my main reason for writing this post, a snow melt trial that I am conducting just outside my shop.
As you can see, i didn't get overly technical with this application. I didn't measure out 2 foot by 2 foot field plots like most studies do. Closest to the camera is Oak bark, sifted to remove all fine material and dust to see how fast the actual chips of bark will melt the snow drift in that specific location. The second "plot" is our topdressing sand put out at a heavy rate, which means I couldn't see any snow through the application by hand. The third plot is of the same topdressing material only at a lighter rate to see if having less sand will melt slower or faster than the heavy amount. My goal for these two plots is to see just how much is effective to not overdo it and waste material at the time being. I'm not worried about the topdressing getting down onto the green, because we put out so much throughout the season that this little amount would correlate to a light topdressing application in the summer. The fourth and final plot is 25'x2' and is the very same product that we use to color the greens in the fall application of our fungicides. Mixed at a rate of 2 oz product to 1 gallon h2o, I was curious to see if the green pigment would absorb as much sunlight due to it's liquid formulation.
Interestingly, the spray pigment seems to be leaching through the snow drift profile both laterally and vertically, sort of the snow cone effect. When you suck all the juice flavor out of a snow cone, the top turns white, or just the shaved ice is left. That's what is happening here, I can see that there is visually less of the green pigment at the top of the drift, and that it has moved laterally and vertically through the drift. It seems like this will hinder it's effect and ultimate goal to melt the snow!?!
Here is a shot showing the lateral movement of the green pigment.
Here is a great show showing the vertical movement of the pigment.
Those shovel marks were done before I sprayed, and I only sprayed the top of the drift, with no drift onto the front of the drift.
So far, an hour and 20 minutes into the study, I would say the heavy application of topdressing is for sure winning the race, followed by the light topdressing, followed by the oak bark, followed by the pigment. The sand is absorbing a lot of the solar radiation and warming the sand and surrounding snow. The bark is doing the same thing in regards to absorbing the sun's heat, but not as uniform in application.
If I were to go out and apply a heavy topdressing right now, we would see a good melt in the coming days if the sun stays out and no new snow blankets the sand. The only thing I worry about is melting snow produces water, which will freeze at night, and if it's surrounding the crown of the plant, we might get crown freeze thaw cycles which is definitely bad for the plant.
Just as I thought, throwing out some sand on top of the snow is going to hasten it's melt quite a bit, but it didn't take a PH D and a field study to come to that conclusion!!!
Thanks for reading!
THINK SPRING
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