Overall I was pretty pleased with what I saw. Although I could only see sections of greens, tees and fairways, I feel optimistic about our turf coming through this extremely difficult winter. There are no signs of snow mold of any kind as that can become a concern when you deal with a lengthy winter with long lasting snow cover. I was also pleased with how the greens are holding up. There are several greens at Metamora that could suffer significant damage because these greens are heavily populated with Poa annua. There is still a significant amount of snow on green #10 which has the highest population of Poa annua, about 90%. I had to dig down through about 24 inches of snow to get to the putting surface and I liked what I saw. The ice that is down there is still porous and the turf has no foul odor. Below are several pictures that were taken around the course.
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| Close up of #10 green |
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| 10 green is 24 inches under snow |
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| #8 Green bentgrass looks good |
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| Crown Hydration of Poa annua |
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| 12 ladies tee, looking good |
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| 11 green, bentgrass looks good |
Everything in these pictures looks pretty good to me, even though there is some poa suffering from crown hydration it's minor and the surrounding bentgrass will fill in and this will become less of an issue on certain greens in the future. However, crown hydration is of major concern on the greens as things begin to melt. As mentioned in a previous post, crown hydration affects Poa annua. These plants will take in water and then freeze during low temperatures, resulting in cellular damage in the crowns and ultimately killing the plants.
