be prepared

Ontario superintendents get ready for winter

Janzen	McQueen	Taylor

There are as many opinions on whether or not to cover greens in winter in Northern climates as there are golf courses. Three Ontario, Canada, superintendents - all located within an hour of Toronto - tell how they get ready for winter.

Westmount Golf & Country Club, Kitchener, was built in 1930 by a group of local businessmen who wanted a great golf course. Superintendent Cory Janzen says that even though the course is just west of Toronto, it's in a different climatic region.

"This is more of a snow belt," he explains. "We get a lot more snow and it stays longer. Our season is two to three weeks shorter than Toronto's. We close the first Monday in November because we use solid plastic covers on the greens and putting them down takes time."

'A black art'

Janzen calls preparing for winter "a bit of a black art." He understands the attitude some superintendents have about solid covers on greens, but says they've been the answer for Westmount.

"In the more than 20 years we've been using covers," he says, "they've only hurt us a couple of times. The previous superintendent experienced a lot of ice damage. Poa annua is not tolerant to any sort of temperature fluctuations in winter. He used covers primarily to keep ice and moisture off the grass that could freeze and thaw. It's a complicated issue. I try to put the covers down the day before it snows; the ideal circumstances are frozen ground and snow the next day. We take them off as soon as the snow is gone. Snow mold can be a problem because the covers create the perfect environment; it's like a greenhouse. But ice damage is a bigger problem and can kill an entire green. We do a deep-tine aeration in fall, and hopefully any moisture trapped underneath the covers has a channel for it to go down rather than sit on the surface."

Janzen uses data loggers on four greens. The devices are mounted on a stake and measure air temperature. A wire leads to a probe at the green and measures the temperature at the surface.

"What we don't want is a temperature of 42 degrees F (6 degrees C) under the cover because the grass will start to come out of dormancy," he says. "The year we had problems was when the temperature under the cover went to 46 degrees F (8 degrees C) for a couple of days. We can't pull off the covers because it might snow the next day, but at least we know why things happen.”

Challenging grow-in
The Club at Bond Head, located 30 minutes north of Toronto, opened in June of this year. The links-style layout features large, rolling fairways, unmaintained bunkers and catch basins around bentgrass greens. The rest of the course is entirely fescue.

Superintendent Ian McQueen gets the course ready for winter just like he did on courses with traditional grasses. He applies a lot of potash in late September to harden off the turf and backs off on nitrogen. He continues topdressing to help the course dry out. He doesn’t spray until he knows snow is on the way. Last year that period was November 26 to December 5.

“I’m a spray guy,” he says. “I like to know my contact is on the grass blade. We use a blend of contact fungicide. Ideally, the chemical is put on the leaf blade when it’s dry and the grass is dormant. The fungicide stays on the leaf until the grass starts growing again. To me, granular is hit or miss. The distribution is not as even. We don’t want to take any chances on a new golf course.”

When soil temperatures drop below 50°F (10°C), McQueen and his staff install permeable covers on the greens.

“We’re high on the hills and this is a very windy, open site,” he says. “There are few trees on the course and the wind just blows through. I use permeable covers to prevent wind desiccation. We don’t have much snow or ice. If we didn’t use the covers, the greens would be brown until mid-May.”

It’s different in the ‘banana belt’

Hunter’s Point Golf Club, Welland, is also a links-style golf course, but it is located in an entirely different environment an hour southwest of Toronto. Locals refer to the area as the “banana belt” because of its relatively warmer winter conditions.

Superintendent John Taylor doesn’t cover his greens. “I’ve never believed in covers because we become exposed too often in winter,” he says. “It will be cold and snowy one week, and the next week all the snow could be gone with sunshine and 45°F (7°C) temperatures. If we’re covered, it could be 70°F (21°C) at the surface. I understand the benefits of covers in the right areas. For us, they would create a greenhouse effect and I’ve seen more damage than good in my years of doing this.”

Taylor does everything he can to go into winter clean.

“We don’t want any disease hanging around,” he says, “and we do everything we can to make sure the turf is healthy. We’ve recovered from aeration, and we don’t want to do anything that will set the plant back when it’s got to bulk itself up and get through the winter.”

Taylor does most of his fertilizing in late fall in dormant applications.

“I’ve always been a big believer in that method,” he says. “It’s the best time of the year to get root development going. Even though the turf is dormant, the plant is still growing in the ground. To me, that’s a good time to feed it.”