Week of October 23rd: Round One
- Michael Curtin
- Oct 27, 2023
- 2 min read
The first week of leaf cleanup has been completed here at the ICC. Of course it was essentially raining leaves this unusually warm October afternoon leaving many areas covered in leaves once again. The silver lining is that the faster the trees loose their leaves the sooner the Ipswich GCM team will be able to keep areas of the course clear of debris. Already some bare trees can be seen lining the fairways. Today and Saturday are looking to be some beautiful days to be outside. In typical New England fashion the weather from Sunday on is forecasted to make a sudden drop down towards more typical fall temperatures.
Cleanup Routine:
We started the week by utilizing our turbine and backpack blowers to move and pile up the many leaves that had fallen across the course. Crew members David and Dominic were busy every afternoon this week cleaning up pile after pile with our leaf sucker. The crew also started using the Harper Hawk leaf vacuum this week. This is a new piece of equipment we have started using this year and are figuring out the best way to work it into our fall cleanup routine. The next few weeks will basically be this cleanup process repeated again and again as leaves continue to fall.
Video of the Harper Hawk in action. Forgive Matts vertical video:
Pesticide Applications:
Greens and approaches were both sprayed this week. Approaches were sprayed for fertility and fungal protection while greens received fertility, fungicide and a plant growth regulator. There are still a few pesticide applications left to be done this year including the extremely important snow mold applications.
Other Work Completed:
Bunkers were blown out and raked. Once again this is something the GCM crew will try to complete a few times a week while we battle the leaves.
Damaged leaning tree overhanging the cart path across the road from the 4th green was removed by Mayer Tree Service.
The hill heading up to the 14th Gold tee was loamed and seeded. This narrow slope receives a lot of wear and tear from the equipment that needs to get up to the 14th gold tee. This includes mowers and also our 300 Gallon sprayer. This has resulted in some deep ruts forming that are both an eyesore and also making getting equipment up this hill potentially dangerous. The newly seeded area was covered using one of our turf covers. This will help encourage some faster seed germination and establishment since it is late in the season for seed. This hill will likely receive some more attention in the future as we look into options for alleviating the wear and tear of the unavoidable equipment traffic.
Range Update:
The range tee is looking good after the recent overseed work. It is now the range fields turn to receive some needed attention from the agronomy team. The range will be closed this coming Monday through Wednesday. Starting Monday the range floor will be aerated using our tractor mounted aerator. Afterwards the field will be top-dressed using a compost material in addition to other soil amendments. This process is being done to improve the overall soil conditions of the range field, improve drainage, and reduce soil compaction.
Recent pictures of the over seeded range tee
