Ice Breaker

Even though we went too great lengths in the way of snow removal from shaded fairway areas, we still ended up with several areas where ice cover developed.

After several days in which significant melting occurred the run off re-froze due to the fact it was melting faster than it could be carried away. Pooling of the water took place at all of the lower lying areas, because the internal drainage systems have become frozen and are not allowing water to move through. This has resulted in a handful of areas that now have three to four inches of ice cover.

In the short term the ice will not cause damage to the underlying Bentgrass, but as an extra precaution we have begun to break the ice up so that removal can take place. I have found the best way of removing the ice with out causing damage to the turf below is the use of aerification equipment.

The tines are setup so that they are only going in the ground a couple of inches rather than at the normal aerification depth. This is done so that we are only breaking the ice on the surface, without going deeper in to the turf.