Course update - The great melt

 


4 Green March 8, 2010

4 Green March 9, 2011



 There are many variables that affect the outcome of the turf in the spring; these include temperature, snow coverage, wind, rain amounts, ice development and interactions between these events. This time of year we often get asked to make predictions as to how the course had wintered and what the spring will hold for conditions, and we would be foolish to give a definitive answer because of the variables involved. It's not just one event, but rather the culmination of these factors that can influence the outcome in the spring. Gathering this information in a quantitative form can be a big task, but fortunatly for Oakfield we have the government helping us out.  The Weather Office, which is the   National  Climate Data and Information Archive for Environment Canada, samples it's data from the Stanfield International Airport.  The data displayed on the website is very detailed, and being so close to the Oakfield, most of the data is pertinent to our needs.  We use a combination of the information taken from the data loggers (soil and surface temperatures) and the climate data from the airport to compare year to year statistics. Because the spring conditions of 2010 were so unusually warm, and the results were so benifitial, it’s an excellent year to use as a baseline for comparisons in future years.  (Note: You can click on these images to make them larger.)







1 Green April 8, 2009 

1 Green March 8, 2010

1 Green March 8, 2011

On March eighth, 2010 the air temperature was nine degrees above zero and there was no snow coverage on the ground.  In a wider picture, March 2010 only had two days where the high temperature dipped below the freezing mark. Although we received some snow fall, none of it accumulated and the ground was clear for most of the month. This year is a different story, until Friday of last week it looked as though winter would never stop.  Most of the greens were still covered in snow and there was a thick layer of ice directly sitting on the surface some  of the greens. However, today the sun is shining and about 80% of the snow has melted away revealing what lies beneath.  The turf, at this point, is healthy and shows little signs of damage from the snow and ice.  As expected, the quick melt of the last few days has created a fair amount of ice, but most of it is porous and detached from the surface.  This is important because  when ice is clear and devoid of air it takes a much longer time to melt.  This “black ice” can cause injury to the plant after a period of time; about 45 days, when the gas exchange is limited and anoxia (suffocation) becomes an issue.  In the near future we will be monitoring the ice build up and decay, the severity of the flux between freeze and thaw and the temperatures in general.   Our greatest concern for the near future is the turf that is no longer insulated by the snow will suffer from the colder temperatures and wind dessication.