Winter Prep and USGA videos

We spent this week getting back into course preparations for Winter. The biggest prep done was to get the final spray on greens and to winterize the sprayer and the mix and load pad. I was lax on the picture taking this week but early in the week I sprayed ferrous sulfate or iron on them to give a boost of color. We had abused them pretty good brushing in the topdressing sand after the late season aerification. Iron plays a key role in chlorophyll production so when applied you get a big color boost. Then the preventative snow mold fungicide had a dye in it and I added Turfscreen which is advertised as sunscreen for turf and it has a dye in it. So greens went from off-color tan and bruised to dark green in just a couple of days. The line from sprayed to un-sprayed is striking and I will try to show that if the sun ever comes out this week. Winterizing a sprayer and the mix and load pad is important but not very picture worthy. Suffice to say we drain them both, blow air through the lines and add non-toxic antifreeze. The mix load pad also gets a plumbing balloon installed where you insert this heavy duty rubber ball with an air nozzle, like a bicycle, and when inflated seals the pipe from winter rain. We also blow air through the town water lines that run to our wash area to winterize them. We still have a a few leaves kicking around and we will chip away at those. We try to spend some time on the roads before winter so that when frozen they are as smooth as possible. I continue the search for a chipper which is on the cap equipment list for 2013. Once we have that in place we will finish the clean up from the fall storms and prepare the pit expansion on six to get access to topsoil and fill for future construction projects.
This morning's email had the USGA's Green Section issue and in that they had a link to some videos you might find interesting. I only looked at two but they were well done. This one is on HOLE PLACEMENT  and the other is on BALLMARK REPAIR Check them out and if you like them there are several more on various topics.