We get a lot of questions about why we're closing now and whether we're doing anything special to prepare the pitch for winter.
While many of you are now hanging up your golf clubs, getting out your skis and enjoying the next few months in the field or in the mountains, and only when the snow starts to fall do you start thinking about the 2019 golf season, our work towards the 2019 season began several months ago.
The work we do in the run-up to winter is basically about giving the plants the best possible conditions for coping with a tough winter.
The idea is that we run several aerations and with different machines doing different jobs, this means that we get longer and stronger roots, we get out anaerobic gases that have arisen in the profile and give the microlife in the ground the opportunity to work under aerobic conditions. And we break up compaction.
It's also important that we have a relatively dry profile in the greens so that the micro life has better ”working conditions” and you don't have too much moisture in the profile during the winter. Here at Holtsmark, we have quite a lot of unbroken organic material in the top 10 cm of the growing medium (known in technical terms as thatch and mat). This acts a bit like a sponge and retains a lot of water, here we want to stimulate faster decomposition by aeration, but we also want to get permanent ”channels” through this layer and that's why we ran the hole pipe aeration in September, where we took out plugs with organic material and replaced it with sand.
Another measure that is important in the run-up to winter is our fertilizer strategy. Here we significantly reduce the nitrogen supply and only add what the plant needs in terms of temperature, etc. This allows the plant to work as naturally as possible and allows photosynthesis to work ”optimally” and the plants will therefore be able to store more carbohydrates (sugar), which they will live on through the winter.
This is also the reason why we release the cutting height in the fall, because the leaf is the plant's ”sun catcher” and by releasing the cutting height, we get a larger canopy surface, which will provide better and more efficient photosynthesis.
”When it comes to why we're closing now, it's very much about the daytime temperature. When the daytime temperature is too low over a long period of time for the plants to ”work”, we have to close the course. This is because the plants then no longer have the ability to repair themselves after the wear and tear from golfers, and it will also be much weaker to ”defend" against diseases that are dragged onto the greens from fairways and green areas.
And when we first close the course, we apply a good amount of sand to the greens followed by deep aeration. And it's not desirable to have any trampling or wear and tear on the greens after this work has been done. The theory behind this is that the more ”porous” and dry the profile we have in the spring, the faster the soil temperature will rise.
And that's why once we close the course, we're closed for the season.
But even though we've prepared for the best possible winter survival, there's still one factor we can't do anything about - the weather. So we're keeping our fingers crossed for a stable and good winter with even temperatures and a light snow cover.
We thank you for a great season and look forward to seeing you again in the spring.
Greetings from the track department at Holtsmark!
