February 13th Update

February has arrived and brought winter with it. January was unseasonably warm for the most part and the precipitation that did fall predominantly came in the form of rain. We received approximately 60cm of snow the entire month compared to 110mm of rain. While we were subject to some wild temperature swings, these events occurred with some snow cover that should have mitigated the possibility of bringing the plants out of dormancy (thereby taking in water) followed by a drop in temperatures that could be damaging to the plants. February has been much more snow-filled, culminating with the storm we are receiving as I compose this blog post. We remain cautiously optimistic with conditions so far this winter. While it can be distressing to think how the greens will fare after storms like these, the glass half full approach is that we have avoided instances of freezing rain/ice storm events to this point. I did a quick tour last week and found that there was no buildup of ice below the snow. 

#11 Green on Wednesday, February 8th. No ice so far.

As was the case in 2015, much of the greens were covered in a layer of ice up to 6” in some cases. Extended time under ice can inhibit critical gas exchange and can be fatal for the turf. Poa Annua in particular has a shorter window that it can sustain ice cover. 2015 saw turf that was covered in ice from mid to late January until late April. Even if last week’s freezing rain (which resulted in much more snow than freezing rain) formed a layer of ice we would be about a month later into winter. Though this much publicized winter storm occurring will certainly bury the golf course in a significant amount of snow, an earlier start to spring is more critical, not to mention more reasonable than to simply hope to avoid snow altogether. Looking back at the records, we had an inordinate amount of late winter and even spring snow events that had us breaking up ice on April 20^th of 2015.

April 20th, 2015. Oh the memories...

I took two samples from the 10^th and 18^th greens on Thursday, January 18^th. The decision to use these greens was to choose one green that is tarped (#18) and one green that is not (#10) Using a circle cutter attached to a drill I cut out the samples. They were brought into the maintenance shop and placed in a container of sand. 

A look at one of the samples prior to placing in the bucket of sand

Both samples after placement

  

The samples were given water and sat in the lunch room to thaw and left to observe growth. After a couple of days new shoots were seen growing. Daily watering has been the only thing done. Trimming the grass with scissors and/or applying fertilizer will encourage more growth, but the intention of this experiment is simply to observe any damage that the plants incurred due to the weather up to the date the samples were taken. As the pictures illustrate, the plants are doing extremely well. 

January 25th. Noticeable growth.

February 1st. No noticeable damage to either sample

What should be noted is the importance of the conditions the samples are under. While in a controlled environment with ideal temperatures (constantly around 20C) and not subject to foot traffic or mower stress, the plants have no problem taking off. Things are much different out in the field when temperatures and weather patterns fluctuate and when the golf course is open the stress that foot traffic and our mechanical inputs cause. But again, the objective of this experiment was to observe any winter damage and the conclusions up to this point are positive.

As stated, February has been full of snow events so far. This major storm will put the month of February well past the entirety of January’s accumulation. We had already received 45cm before Monday’s event where up to 60cm more is possible. Furthermore, there is more snow forecasted before week’s end. After plowing the golf course out I will take a couple of samples from additional greens (if possible) and bring them into the shop and analyze how they grow out. Stay tuned.