Still Waiting for Spring

After what has been a long and cold winter, spring seems to be a little apprehensive. Over the winter we saw some extreme temperatures and wind chill, multiple freeze/thaw cycles and quite a bit of snowfall. We were a little bit uneasy with how the course would fair in these extremes, but were pleasantly surprised with how it came through. The majority of the course wintered very well with only a small amount of winter damage on a few of the back 9 fairways.

The greens did quite well over the winter. The bentgrass is much more winter hardy than our native poa annua, which has moved back in on our fairways. A few greens (11,12, and 14) were exposed from their protective snow cover and endured some of the coldest and windiest events that winter had to offer. These greens experienced some minor leaf desiccation and bleaching, but are well on their way to recovery. They may still appear bleached but are coming along nicely, yet somewhat slower than the surrounding putting surface. Today we applied our first granular fertilizer application, which should help speed their recovery.

11th Green March 22nd - leaf tissue damage (bleaching)

A few areas on the fairways were not quite so lucky. With the majority of the fairways now back to poa annua, they have a much lower winter tolerance than our greens. Areas that became exposed to extreme wind chill (mounded areas on 11, 15, 16) experienced almost total desiccation. A few areas suffered from some minor ice damage (low spots and swails), but much less that we have seen in some previous years. These winter kill areas were hit with a fertilizer application on April 7th and again today with our full fairway fertilizer application. We will be aerating these areas next week and applying sand and seed to work into the aeration holes.

I want to make it clear that these winter kill areas are NOT from a lack of irrigation. These areas look dry because they were exposed to extreme windchill in the winter. This is the point where they became dehydrated due to extreme wind and cold and perished. As we move into spring, the surviving turf begins to green up, while the desiccated turf gets browner as it decomposes. We have had irrigation on these areas for more than they require, and with an above average rainfall for the last month, it is quite impossible that these areas became dry this spring. This can be proven by taking a sample of soil from beneath the turf. It is quite moist and able to support living turf.

11th Fairway December 13th 2016 - Exposure

11th Fairway February 9th 2017 - Continued Exposure

11th Fairway April 7th 2017 - Desiccation

Our spring greens aeration will be taking place this Sunday, April 23rd (front 9) and Monday April 24th (back 9). We are using solid tines instead of taking a core, which is typical for our spring aeration. The solid tines are less laborious for us, as there are no cores to clean up, and the aeration holds heal faster as the compressed organic material in the thatch layer expands back out after being filled with sand and rolled + irrigated.

The weather looks like it supposed to warm up somewhat, although the forecasters seem to keep saying that and not following through on their promises. I'm not sure if teasing us is fun for them or if they are just as perplexed as us. Either way, spring has to come sometime, hopefully before we get to May!