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The big thaw
For courses in northern climes, removing ice
from greens is a challenging and necessary process.
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I realize ice damage on putting greens is limited to only a select few golf courses each year, but it seems that some of us are more select than others. After coping with ice almost every winter for the past 15 years at Buffalo Hill Golf Club in Kalispell, Mont., I’ve learned a few things about what to do — and what not to do — when your putting greens are swallowed up by layers of ice.
Based on those observations, here are some of my answers to questions that I am commonly asked as a superintendent at a course that deals with ice on an almost annual basis.
Why do greens ice over?
The ice we deal with in the Rocky Mountains usually forms when snow cover begins to melt as a result of warm sunny days and when the putting surfaces themselves are frozen underneath. It is hard to believe, but sometimes our putting surfaces are completely unfrozen beneath the snow cover. So to get ice, the putting surface must be frozen before a snow layer accumulates.
Often, daytime temperatures in mid-November never get above freezing, but it hasn’t yet snowed. As a result, the soil under close-cut turf begins to freeze deeper and deeper each day. If it snows early in the fall, the likelihood of frozen putting surfaces is low, which also decreases the possibility of ice forming later in the winter. If the water created from melting snow can drain through unfrozen greens, then you won’t get ice formation.
However, if the putting surface is frozen below the snow, the water from the melting snow accumulates on top of the putting surface and typically refreezes at night when the temperature drops.
To remove or not to remove the ice?
If ice forms in December or January, I believe you should take it off immediately. Since a thaw is nearly three full months away at that point in the year, leaving turf trapped under ice until mid-March almost guarantees it won’t survive. Sure, we risk the possibility of direct low temperature kill or desiccation, but if the ice remains for months, you are guaranteed dead turf. So I roll the dice and remove it.
If the ice forms in March, remove it because it is still possible to have ice cover for more than a month.
In my experience, the quicker you remove the ice from putting surfaces the better, regardless of when it forms. I have found newly formed ice is less organized and more easily removed. If you wait until January to remove ice that forms in December, for example, the ice will take on the consistency of concrete.
And I’ve found it important to finish what you start. When we get those warm days, I think the faster we get started, the more likely we will get finished. We usually get about a week of warm days with freezing nights, so each day you delay allows the ice to just get thicker. Greens partially cleared on day one often completely melt and clear within the week.
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On warm days at Buffalo Hill GC, crews get an early start on ice removal, preventing the buildup of an impenetrable layer. |
How do you get the ice off?
At Buffalo Hill, we have tried just about every way imaginable to remove ice. It’s been a trial-and-error method, but we have settled on a routine that seems to work well for us.
First, we remove the loose snow from greens quickly with small snow blowers or plows. We have experimented with large loader-backhoes, skid steers, track loaders and small blowers, and I think the best way is with medium-sized snow blowers like the ones that fit on walk-behind greensmowers or 72-inch rotary mowers. Walk-behind snow blowers tend to be too small to handle the job.
Rotary brooms also can help when they follow behind the blowers by removing more of the loose stuff the blowers leave behind. Seriously consider replacing the metal cutting edge on the snow blower with a rubber one that will roll over as you use it, limiting the height of cut of the snow blower. The rubber cutting edge really helps prevent gouging unfrozen turf, especially on the collars and surrounds.
Now the hard part — actually removing the ice. You’ll need plenty of help, so begin with phone calls to your crew. The more bodies you have, the more likely you are to get the job done. You’ll also need tools for all those bodies, so gather up all your snow shovels, grain shovels, flat bottom shovels and flat bottom spades. From green to green, you may find one shovel type works better than others. Squeegees will also be a big help. The 36-inch-wide ones work well. The roller-type squeegees do not work, so leave them in the shop.
If the ice is too thick to handle with shovels, move up to motorized equipment. We always start with our aerifiers. The tough part is getting them to run in the middle of the winter when they’ve been sitting idle for four months and are buried behind all the other equipment that won’t start. In addition, the smooth turf tires can’t traverse any snow, so you will have to use a trailer to get the aerifier to the greens.
Run the aerifier as high as possible while still making contact with ice. Solid tines are good, but even hollow tines work well. The ice will need to be unorganized for an aerifier to work at all. If the ice is thick and clear, the aerifier will probably be unsuccessful and break frequently. Thick, clear ice is like concrete. If the ice is milky white with obvious air bubbles trapped inside, it seems less hard and more suitable to aerifier use.
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Newly formed ice is less organized and more easily removed. |
If the ice is too tough for an aerifier, then bring out the rammer. Yes, a Wacker jumping jack. You will need to tack-weld four to six 1/2-inch round stock onto the jack, perpendicular to the direction of travel. Run the jack across the ice and the round stock will shatter the ice nicely. It can still be tough to remove, but not impossible. The round stock can easily be removed from the jack if you only tack it on.
If time runs short or you have a significant fear of desiccation, create herringbone ice removal patterns on the surface of the greens. These areas will allow the melted ice water to move off the greens, and the ice adjacent to the drainage ways will “rot” as water evacuates from under the ice on warm days, facilitating its removal by shovel another day.
Using an edger to cut grooves into the ice slightly wider than your shovels can sometimes help you to get your shovels under the ice, enabling the removal of slabs of ice.
What else can you do?
We have tried numerous ice-melting products, but you must avoid common ice-melting salts because of the sodium. One product that uses a calcium-coated urea has shown promise, but it still scares me. Proceed with caution using any salt.
One that has proven successful for us is charcoal. Plain old Kingsford will work great. The large briquettes are big enough to absorb heat even as they melt through the ice. Use about three bags per green. Of course, finding 60 bags of Kingsford in the dead of winter can be a challenge, so don’t be picky on a particular brand — Wal-Mart charcoal is the cheapest and largest. Do not use the match-light types.
Activated charcoal also shows promise. You can purchase varying sizes from powder to marbles. We use a particle that is about 120 SGN. It is big enough to see and small enough to go through a rotary spreader. Use about 100 to 150 pounds per green. The powders are awful to deal with and won’t feed through any spreader I have tried.
Avoid carbon charcoal. This material is in air filters and purifiers. This charcoal is in the shape of pellets, but the pellets are so hard that they will dull your mowers in the spring. If these carbon pellets were clear instead of black, we would call them diamonds.
Wood stove pellets have worked, but be careful to apply them somewhat sparingly. If you spill a large amount of wood pellets on the green, it will insulate the ice and make it tougher to remove than without the pellets.
Some people use fertilizer to melt the ice, but I haven’t had much luck with this method. Milorganite has not worked well for me, and getting a couple of pallets on short notice in the middle of winter can be a challenge. I have tried the greens-grade Milorganite for ice melt and was unimpressed. Maybe the fairway grade would work better, but I haven’t tried it.
From what I have read, straight urea will cause significant turf damage, and the potassium salts don’t seem to do much at all.
Any other tips?
Let your general manager, green committee or board of directors know immediately about your ice-removal plans. They will appreciate the effort, and letting them know in advance what’s going on with the greens will pay off if you run into problems.
Also, remember the pain killers. I have never removed ice from greens without an abundant supply of Advil close by.
Some superintendents have asked me about the use of covers on greens to prevent these problems, and they might be a reasonable option now. The original greens covers were too heavy, used weak staples, were impossible to repair and created significant greenhouse effects. The latest covers are similarly priced, weigh less, use nails instead of staples, have eliminated the greenhouse effect while providing enough light to avoid turf yellowing, and have devices available to reduce wind damage.
Got ice? My best advice is to get lucky, get good at removing it or get another job.
This article is eligible for the 2007 Leo Feser Award, presented annually since 1977 to the author of the best superintendent-written article published in GCM during the previous year. Superintendents receive a $300 stipend for articles. Feser Award winners receive an all-expenses-paid trip to the Golf Industry Show, where they are recognized. They also have their names engraved on a plaque permanently displayed at GCSAA headquarters.
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