Grass Clippings
Winter care of the golf course will lead to Spring rewards
by Peter Grass, CGCS
I have been watching from several scientific meteorological sources – including NOAA – their Dec-March general weather predictions. They show overall below average temperatures and above normal precipitation for 90 percent of Montana and at least normal for the entire state.
That is good news for skiers, bad for golfers – but I will say, very good for golf courses. By that I mean the physical property itself (turf and trees). By not having the additional damage of excessive play and cart traffic on dormant turf, better conditions in the early spring will be the result.
What I have learned is to prepare for the worst and hopefully be surprised if it does not occur. Those preparations include a thorough winterization of the irrigation system, proper soil and plant fertility levels beginning in September and through Fall, with availability in the soil whenever ground temperatures rise enough to allow plant intake (March/April). Adjusting greens height of cut higher in small increments through the fall to increase leaf surface as daylight hours reduce.
As budgets allow, treat greens and if able, tees and fairways also with snow mold preventative disease applications. Some winters you could get by without these treatments, but they are “insurance.”. The disease occurs any time soil temperatures and moisture levels are conducive for disease spore activity.
Have a plan and resources available should natural moisture not be sufficient or timely to needs, so you can add water to greens if needed. Some courses that are particularly vulnerable to more open, windy conditions also use breathable covers on some or all greens to protect them from desiccation.
The last major concern is to be checking for any ice buildup when daytime thawing and nighttime freezing occurs. The type of ice, solid or porous, is what you have to watch, as long as soils can breathe you are okay. If solid ice cover lasts between 3-6 weeks, depending upon type of grass, Poa annua being the most easily damaged, some sort of action should be taken to either break up or remove the ice. The hard part in doing so is to not do more damage than good during the process. I have had things go both ways, no matter how careful we thought we were being during ice removal.
Mother Nature acts like a good baseball pitcher – you never know what will be thrown at you next, whether it be a fastball, curveball or knuckleball. If not properly prepared, you absolutely may “strike out” and the result will be struggling or possibly dead turf in the spring, without someone monitoring conditions throughout the winter months.
A golf course is a living organism, and the attitude that we don’t have to think about it until Spring will be harmful in the long run. Having someone qualified checking on the course through winter is a small investment to make for good returns next Spring.