DON'T START LAWN SERVICES YET!

I have seen a number of people mowing, power raking, fertilizing, and applying pre-emergent products to home lawns. Performing any of these practices at this time is not only a waste of time and money, but could also be detrimental to your lawn.

I don't suggest inflicting any mechanical damage to the plant until it has regained some recuperative ability. Wait until you see significant green up or vertical growth. In fact, this might be the year to skip power raking and aerification altogether. The turf will need to rely more heavily on carbohydrate reserves this year to recover from the harsh winter. These mechanical/cultivation practices will only drain this energy reserve even further. The less stress you can put on your turf this spring the better it will hold up through summer.

As for fertilizer applications, WAIT! Nutrients contained in fertilizer products are not directly available to the plant and most need multiple factors to initiate the conversion of these nutrients to plant available forms. These factors are warmth, moisture, and/or microbial activity and we have none of those in our favor right now. A good rule of thumb is to let the soil temperatures to get to 55 degrees. At the course we are finding soil temperatures in the 40's.

Wait on pre-emerge product applications as well. We don't know what the health of the turf is going to be coming out of winter and you may have to over-seed some areas. A pre-emergent application could really hamper your abilities to reseed.

If you want to do something, fire up your irrigation and lightly water. This will help warm your soil and break turf dormancy. There is some rain and warmth in the forecast so be patient. Good decisions now will pay dividends in the future.

News Segment on Winter Weather & Golf Courses

KETV recently aired a story about the effects this year's winter weather is having on local golf courses. Check it out here:

http://www.ketv.com/news/Subpar-Moisture/25132474 

Turf Status Conclusion?

It has been three weeks since we pulled our test plugs and the results are mixed. The good news is our bentgrass plug continues to fill in and look pretty good. The bad news is both of our ryegrass plugs have shown little-to-no signs of life. Although I am disappointed by our results, I am not all that surprised.

Bentgrass on top and ryegrass plugs on the bottom

 

 

A common thought is that the turf has succumbed to desiccation, but in the case of our ryegrass, I am unsure if that is our main culprit. Without a doubt, the dry, open, and windy winter has caused a great deal of stress on the plant, but I am quite certain that the majority of any turf loss will be attributed to direct cold temperature injury.

 

FAQ's about cold temperature injury

 

What is direct cold temperature injury?

Direct cold temperature injury occurs when the crown of the plant takes up water through a process know as crown hydration. Crown hydration occurs naturally when the plant experiences periods of warm weather during dormancy. If a dramatic drop in temperature follows this hydration process the water within the plant rapidly freezes and punctures the cells of the plant. This most often results in plant death.

 

Why does the ryegrass show signs injury and the bentgrass does not?

All species of turf grass have different LT₅₀ temperature thresholds. An LT₅₀ is a temperature threshold at which you can expect 50% of the turf to die when exposed for a period of time. The LT₅₀ levels for the dominant turf grasses on our course are listed below:

• Ryegrass: 5°F
• Bluegrass: -23°F
• Bentgrass: -31°F

You can see that ryegrass has a very high LT₅₀ temperature when compared to the other cool season turf grasses. This is due in part to its genetic predisposition to rehydrate much quicker than other turf species.

 

What made this winter worse than other?

We have had 31 days with a low of 5°F degrees or less at the course since December 1st. Remember from above that the LT₅₀ level for ryegrass is 5°F. We also had three instances where we had a 60+ degree swing in 48 hours or less and one instance where we had a 50+ degree swing in that same time frame. Again, remember from above, that ryegrass quickly initiates crown rehydration in the presence of warm weather. All of this is on top of the fact that we had no snow cover for insulation. We were also extremely dry and there is thought throughout academia that there may be a synergism between drought stress and cold injury.

 

Why did the turf cut at higher heights survive better than the turf cut at lower height? OR Why did my lawn survive but the fairways struggled?

The answer to this question is a bit dynamic. There are a lot of factors that effect how our golf course overwinters versus how a home lawn overwinters. The simplest and most common reason for this is that most home lawns will consist of bluegrass and fescues, not ryegrass. Due to a number of reasons, ryegrass is not a great choice for home lawns, thus, is not used in this setting very often. Fescues and blues have a better cold tolerance than rye. Another reason the longer turf survives better is the insulating property of the longer leaf blades. It doesn't take a lot to change the micro climate at the crown level. A few inches of leaf blade can trap heat, keep out the cold and block out wind. A few degrees difference or a little protection from the biting wind can really make a difference. 

 

What are our levels of damage on the course?

This is very difficult to predict. Its is hard to make a blanket statement about the condition of 60 acres of ryegrass based on 1/2 of a square foot of turf grown in a bucket. What I can tell you, regardless of the extent of the damage, is that a comprehensive recovery plan is already set up and we are prepared to tackle any level of injury.

 

The next few weeks will be very telling. What we need now is warmth, sun light and moisture.

 

 



Turf Status Test: Day 5



I propped the turf plugs up in front of the sliding glass door on the south side of my house over the weekend. Gus wasn't too thrilled to share his spot in the sun, but he understands it is all in the name of research.

I counted about five green shoots on the plug from #2 Black Bird fairway this morning.  

 The plug from #1 Gray Hawk green continues to improve.

There isn't any sign of emerging shoots on the plug from #1 Gray Hawk fairway. I am able to find a small amount of green tissue at the base of some of the plants however.

Turf Status Test: Day 2

After 40 hours indoors, there still isn't much activity to report in the ryegrass plugs. When I sift through the canopy, I can almost convince myself there are a few new shoots emerging. It's hard to tell if this is really happening or simply a case of wishful thinking. There are some white roots in the profile but not many. The bentgrass plugs continue to see a slow green up. Again, nothing overwhelming but definitely a difference from yesterday.

It looks like my kids are going to have to compete with the turfgrass plugs for my attention this weekend. The test plugs will be accompanying me home over the weekend so I can continue to monitor their progress and keep you all updated.



Turf Status Test

This photo was taken 24 hours after we began our "super scientific" test to determine the effects the winter weather has had on our turf. Yesterday we removed a plug from #1 Gray Hawk green, #1 Gray Hawk fairway, and #2 Black Bird fairway, placed the plugs on a growing medium (sand), provided water and heat and waited for any signs of life.

#1 Gray Hawk was chosen as a location for plug removal based on the fact that it is one of the course's most exposed areas. #2 Black Bird was selected as a location for plug removal based solely on the eye test. The fairway seems to have a different look in regards to turf color and turf stand integrity.

After 24 hours, we didn't seen any green up in the ryegrass plugs and just a little bit in the bentgrass plugs. I wasn't surprised by the lack of green up in the ryegrass plugs. Twenty-four hours is a short window of time and the turf was very dormant. The visible green up overnight in the bentgrass plug, however, was surprising and unexpected.

These plugs are only a very small snapshot of the golf course and most likely will not represent the facility as a whole. We will need more time before we can determine the overall health of these plugs and will keep you posted.

Summer Employment Opportunities

Spring is quickly approaching and before long, the course will be filled with golfers and we will have more work to do than time to complete it. As we prepare for the season, we are starting to fill our seasonal positions. Finding hard-working and dependable people to work during the golf season is always difficult and seems to get more so every year. You would be doing the golf course a favor by spreading the word that we are hiring to anyone you may know that would have interest in golf course work. Please have them contact me at 402.289.0901.

We have a few of our typical seasonal positions open, but have also created a couple new positions for the coming season.



The first new position would be for two people to mow the rough on Thursday and Sunday evenings. In past years, we made three mower passes around each fairway on Monday and Friday morning –  a process we call "swaths". The goal of this was to provide less penal rough right along the fairway while we focused on the rest of the "outside rough." One issue that frequently arises with this mowing schedule is by Monday and Friday morning, the turf adjacent to the fairways is long and wet and the mowing process results in a mess. Inevitably, we end up having to blow or drag the clippings. This clean up process is time-consuming, rarely works well, and uses up additional manpower. The other issue we run into, especially on a busy Friday, is getting caught by golfers. Once we get caught by golf, the opportunity to come back and remove clippings is gone. This leaves a less than ideal playing surface and a sloppy appearance on the course.

My hope is that by mowing these areas the evening before, when things are dry, we will have little or no mess to clean up and no need to run the rough mowers around fairways on Monday and Friday. Of course, we have golf to work around during the evenings but we have a mow pattern in place that will eliminate almost all repeat contact with golf groups. The goal is for the golfer to see the mower, at most, once per nine hole round.

This would be a great position for a retiree looking to keep busy or for someone that wants to make a few extra bucks and enjoy the golf benefits that come with working on the course.



The other positions we are always looking to fill are the dedicated weekend positions. We need a lot of workers for a short period of time on the weekends to get ahead of the 6:30 am three tee start. I like to have a handful of people that are willing to work a few hours on Saturday and Sunday only. Juggling the vacations, sports, family, and summer school schedules of the regular seasonal crew is very difficult and the dedicated weekenders help fill gaps and keep a consistent work force on the course. These positions will require a bit more physical output than the evening mowing positions and may require spending some afternoons hand-watering, but are still a great position.
Again, please contact me at the shop if you or anyone you know would have any interest in joining the maintenance crew for the golf season.