Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The Growing (err..Mowing) Season is Over!

Well there is a point in time during every golfing season when the turf ceases to grow and that time has come.

This bucket is full of needles and leaves.  Very little turf is seen and this was after cutting(?) ten greens!
We've backed off the frequency of cutting playing surfaces and have been doing that for a couple of weeks mowing only to "clean up" pine needles and leaf debris.  Now with the colder temperatures and limited amounts of daylight, it is actually in our best interest to allow the turf to became a little "shaggy" going into winter.  The extra length will allow for more photosynthetic surface for greater carbohydrate building and storage.  The turf will depend on that energy source for rebirth next spring.  The greens will be "rolled" but not cut to smooth out putting surfaces until the course closes for the season.  This is very important to eliminate mowing as final contact snow mold chemicals will be in place on the leaf blade.  They're expensive and need to stay in place for almost 150 days.  We'd be wasting your dues dollar to mow them off.  _Mk