One thing working in this industry for the last 20 years has taught me is humbleness. Every time you think all things are under control, nature throws another curve ball. Spraying in late December and early January is typically not something that needs to be accomplished. Usually, temperature and humidity in winter are low enough to keep most diseases away. However, this year was the exception. The last week of December turned out to be the warmest I have ever seen for that time period. Christmas day we reached a record high of 69 and the week that followed had highs in the high 50s and low 60s with lows only a couple degrees lower than the daytime high. Also, it was extremely moist with heavy rain events and cloudy days that let the moisture and dew sit on the turf for the entire day. It was during this time that a disease popped up on the newly seeded areas. Greasy, circular patches with a white mycelium became evident and once noticed we quickly sprayed with different fungicides to contain it.
I am not a plant pathologist, but superintendents have to play one every day they come to work. I speculated it was one of three diseases, take-all path, pink snow mold, or another outbreak of the damping off disease which we battled earlier in the season. We sent samples and pictures out to Mr. Todd Hicks, Program Director for the Turf Pathology Program at Ohio State. After looking at the sample he was unable to get the mycelium to act up, which is a good thing since it shows that the plant protectants that were used worked in stopping the attack. Based on the pictures I sent and a conversation we had on the phone about the conditions leading up to the outbreak he concluded that it was probably Pink Snow Mold.
The crazy thing about Pink Snow Mold is that it can occur even without snowfall. In fact, there are two forms of the disease, Pink Snow Mold and Microdochium Patch. The former is a true snow mold that occurs under snow cover while the latter happens in cool, wet rainy weather. Both phases of this disease are common on newly seeded greens and fairways. Pink Snow Mold is something that we preventively deal with every season and this year was no exception. Once we stop mowing for the season, a preventative snow mold granular fungicide is applied to all the greens. This usually occurs in mid-December; however, this season we were mowing greens all the way until Christmas and could not put down the preventative application until later in the month. The fungicide was put down on the putting greens and newly seeded areas the week after Christmas. Unfortunately, the product takes a while to get into the grass and the unusually warm (for this time of year) and extremely wet conditions were a hot bed for this outbreak. The good news is I think we have the disease under control, and the only affected areas were the newly seeded chipping green and putting green expansion. All other greens were unaffected. The fungicides combined with the return of normal winter temperatures have stopped the disease as of this writing. Also, the recent removal of the three pin oak trees above the chipping green will help immensely to decrease the amount of time the turf plant blades are moist. We have taken plugs from our nursery to help heal affected areas and will monitor as winter progresses.
 |
| Picture of disease on new putting green area |
 |
| Pink snow mold on chipping green with new plugs from the nursery added to the center. The plugs will eventually grow into the unhealthy area. |
 |
| Close up of disease |
 |
| Same area one week later after the disease, hopefully, is contained. |
Many of you may have noticed the white tarp that we have over the transition area between the old putting green and new expansion area. When we seeded this location in early October many rain events followed that continued to wash out this area, causing us to constantly reseed. As we got later into November the turf really slowed down growth and germination came to a halt. The good thing about the warm December is it did help to increase some germination. Moving forward the plan is, with the help of the permeable cover (which helps to raise the temperature of the blanketed soil), to have good coverage by spring.
 |
| Grow cover for putting green transition area |
 |
| A view of the transition area in November. Notice the bare areas that were victims to wash outs. |
 |
| Same area in late December from the opposite angle. The area has filled in nicely because of warm December temperatures and the use of this cover. Hopefully it continues to grow in the rest of the winter. |
Tree work is underway. A tree inventory was done in late October and some problem trees were detected. Many of the diseased oak trees have fungal infections that affect the structural integrity of the trees. When the fungal infection is noticed to be severe, we recommend them to be removed. This year three trees were noticed to have different fungal diseases observed by conks, mushrooms, and other fungi growing in the trunk areas. Removing them is imperative as the following pictures will help to show. These trees could have fallen in the next year and possibly caused someone harm, or in the very least fell on a fairway or cart path leaving a ton of debris to clean up and massive ruts to fix during the busy season.
 |
| Trunk area of a red oak tree that we noticed had a significant ganoderma infection. The tree would have eventually fell due to the remarkable amount of decay caused by the infection. |
 |
| Black locust tree with significant deterioration from shelf fungus disease. This tree was going to fall at some point in the near future if not removed. |
Problem limbs are also being removed. The Green Commitee has a list of bothersome limbs that we are going to tackle as weather and the budget allows. Some of those areas include limbs left of #4 fairway, limbs #6 valley, pin oaks left of #8 fairway, pin oaks by #9 tee, ash trees valley of #9, red maples right of #10 fairway, right of #15 fairway, left of #16 green bunker, and pin oak left of #17 closer to the green. One thing we never run out of at WHCC is tree work! We will try and get as much as we can done during these colder winter days.
 |
| Pruning cuts on red maples left of #10 fairway |
 |
| Job completed. Limbs overhanging the fairway were trimmed back. |
 |
| Pin Oaks trimmed up on the left of #9 tee. |
The project work has slowed down this winter. The concrete at the mat area has been poured, and the bids that have come in for the asphalt have been received. Unfortunately, the asphalt for the parking area and cart path on the driving range will not be accomplished until spring because of the lack of availability of the asphalt product during the winter months. The floor of the driving range will be completed in the spring. Also, phase 2 of the driving range renovation will start in February or March with trees being cleared for the new cart path on the north driving range tee. The construction of the cart building is underway, and the grounds crew is hauling away dirt as needed. Some of this extra topsoil will be used in the coming months to fill in stump holes. In addition, we are getting prices together for some much-needed upgrades to the grounds building once the new cart building is completed.
 |
| Raymond working the bobcat to remove a large pile of dirt produced by the construction of the new cart building |
Other winter work will include equipment maintenance, staff recruitment for the 2022 season, staff educational seminars, parking lot snow and ice removal, adding soil to high cart path areas, fixing crushed limestone cart path areas, removing and filling in stump grinding holes, and hardscape work. Finally, after avoiding the pestilence for the last 2 years, the Grounds Crew has fell victim to the omicron variant and we currently have 4 employees out. We are lucky it has hit in January and not in the middle of the golf season. We will get as much work done during the winter as the variant and mother nature allows and are hopeful for a disease-free turf, trees, and crew for the upcoming 2022 season!
Brad Piecuch
Grounds Superintendent
