Spring Golf - Course Opening

Our annual April 1st target date for opening the golf course is still on target.  While we have had several nice days in March, we have continued on the temporary greens.  The main reason is for an agronomic term known as root shearing.  Root shearing can occur when foot traffic is exposed to greens that are soft and beginning to thaw.   Damage can occur when the turfgrass roots are sheared by the compaction of foot traffic.  Roots are the foundation of any healthy turfgrass plant.  Damaging the root system going into the spring must be avoided to ensure a healthier turf that can withstand the stresses of season long golf pressure.   Please take a look at several published articles below.

 Root Shearing Damage - Exposing Soft Greens To Play

 

                     USGA Article

Excitement for the upcoming golf season begins to build during late winter. While some golf facilities in the Northeast close for winter, others continue to allow play depending on the weather. When the weather is favorable, allowing play usually is a fairly simple decision. However, the decision becomes much more difficult when the weather fluctuates between extremes. Mild and sunny days in February and March might be enticing to golfers, but lasting turfgrass damage can result when winter play is allowed under the wrong conditions.
Playing golf during highly variable winter weather can result in turf damage. During late winter, cold snaps often follow periods of warm temperatures. Under these conditions, turf is extremely vulnerable to injury from traffic. Play during a sudden thaw can be especially damaging because the upper 1 or 2 inches of soil can defrost while the underlying soil remains frozen. Traffic under these conditions can shear turf roots at the interface between the thawed and frozen layers. Such shearing can compromise turf health come spring.
Frozen soils also cannot drain. When precipitation occurs, the surface of frozen soils will remain saturated and prone to injury. Soils also dry slowly during late winter due to short day length and cool temperatures, so even unfrozen soils will be slow to dry and firm up after precipitation. Soft surfaces are more vulnerable to damage from foot traffic, ball marks, rutting and compaction.
It is important to remember, no matter how thawed or frozen the soil is, turf is unlikely to be growing during winter. Grass that isn’t growing cannot recover from damage until spring. Therefore, turf damage that occurs during winter can have a cumulative effect that lasts until warm weather arrives and the grass is able to recover.
Before allowing winter play ask, what is the purpose of winter play? All golf facilities welcome additional rounds, but sometimes allowing play during winter presents more costs than benefits. Keep in mind that winter play under the wrong conditions may result in a net loss due to the expense of repairs or slow spring greenup.
https://www.usga.org/course-care/roots-are-not-elastic-54930.html

Roots Are Not Elastic!

By Darin S. Bevard, Senior Agronomist
January 15, 2010
WOW! The mercury pushes above the freezing mark for a couple of days in much of the region, and the questions regarding winter play have come rushing into our offices. The negative impacts of winter play are hard to quantify, which is what makes the topic so controversial. However, it is generally accepted that golfer traffic on dormant, frozen greens can create problems, even if only early in the growing season.
A bigger concern is playing on greens during freeze/thaw cycles, which are the conditions that are occurring right now. In recent days, the surfaces of greens have thawed, but underlying soils are still frozen within one or two inches of the surface. Under these conditions, the potential for root shearing is greatest. How much this actually occurs in debatable, but it is best to err on the side of caution and keep greens closed until thawing occurs deeper in the profile. Remember, if the underlying soils are frozen, water infiltration will not occur, thus keeping the greens spongy and more prone to mechanical damage from foot traffic and ball marks. In some instances, the need for revenue may trump caution, but beware of potential problems of subjecting greens to winter play.

 

Topdressing Greens

                                WHY IS SAND APPLIED TO PUTTING GREENS?

Light and frequent sand topdressing creates smooth, firm putting surfaces.

For most, there are three primary characteristics that constitute a quality putting surface: (1) a smooth surface, (2) a firm surface and (3) healthy turf. There is no question that adequate sunlight, water and nutrients are essential to provide healthy turf, but what contributes to the more subjective aspects of smoothness and firmness? These two critical components are tied together by one common link – high quality topdressing sand.  Sand topdressing has been the great equalizer, helping to dilute organic material and create smooth, firm surfaces.  Applying sand to the putting greens is often a source of frustration for some players, but a quick look at how putting greens would perform without sand topdressing reveals its importance.

What Happens Under All That Snow

While snow can appear as a beautiful and calm blanket for a golf course during the winter month, undesirable things can be happening underneath. In the basic of terms, turf can survive under snow for extended periods but if there is an ice layer under the snow then the turf can only survive for a certain amount of time. While snow affords oxygen availability to the turfgrass plant, an ice layer prevents oxygen to get to the turf.

Each different species of turfgrass has its own specific threshold of tolerance before damage occurs to the plant under ice. For this reason sometimes drastic measures have to be initiated to protect the turf, even during the frozen winter when golfers are thousands of miles away from Chicago in the warmer climates. In the event that you would like to learn more about the effects of snow and ice damage to turf, please refer to the following website and article.

http://www.usga.org/course_care/regional_updates/regional_reports/midatlantic/What-Is-

Northmoor Country Club golf course under snow
The photo below is of Microdochium patch, a winter turfgrass disease.
We want to avoid this at all costs. It occurs under extended periods of ice and snow.

Numerous diseases can occur under the snow and ice

that can affect the appearance and playability of the

golf course the following spring.

The photo below shows the effects of ice damage in a shaded area on a golf course.
More winter and ice damage on a course in Virginia.
The photo below is of a 1 inch ice layer on our green at NCC.
Our staff removed the snow layer with a sand machine blade

so that we could get to the ice layer.

Once the snow was removed from the surface of the green
we shattered the ice layer with the aerifyer machine tines.

This allowed air and sunlight to get to the grass plant.

The surface of the green was cleared of ice for turfgrass protection & survival.

Frost

The photo below shows the results of frost damage caused by golf carts driving on a fairway before a morning frost has had time to melt. I will try to give you a brief explanation of why this happens.
Everyone knows frost must clear off the grass before play can begin, but few people know why. Frost on the grass blades tells us that the water inside the leaves is frozen. Remember that water is the primary component of plant tissue. When this water is frozen, traffic on the turf causes the ice crystals in the cells to puncture through the cell walls, killing the plant tissue. Little damage is done to the crowns (growing points) or roots if only a light frost appears; however, when the frost is heavy, cell disruption may occur at the crown, thus killing the entire plant. Frost damage symptoms include white to light tan leaves where traffic has passed.

Traffic damage on frozen turf areas usually occurs during periods of freezing or thawing. The most devastating situation occurs when the grass blades and the upper one-half to one inch of soil has thawed, but the ground beneath their level remains frozen. Traffic will create a shearing action of the roots, rhizomes, and crown tissues at this time. This is comparable to cutting the plant tissue from the underlying root system with a sod cutter. Complete kill of leaves, crowns, and rhizomes can occur if the temperatures soon drop below 20° F. Symptoms from this severe injury include whitish to dark brown leaves that may mat on the surface.

Below is a photo of a turf area with the frozen crystals on the leafblades. What we cannot see if the same frozen crystals inside the leafblade.

Frost occurrence and starting time delays are very common in the spring and fall on golf courses on the North Shore of Chicago. Golfers may leave the heat and warmth of their homes on a cold morning ready to set onto the course and tee it up. Unfortunately, overnight temperatures that have dropped into the low to mid 30s deliver a sparking white layer of frost on many areas of the course. There can be evidence of frost on certain areas of the course when the ambient temperatures are even in the mid to higher 30s. This is because the news casters give reports that have reading taken 36 inches above the ground. In lower and shaded areas temperatures can varying by 3 to 5 degrees or more at ground level.

Foot or mower traffic can crush the frozen leafblades resulting in the ice crystals becoming fragmented and puncturing the cell walls within the leafblade and causing significant damage to the plant. For this reason we will occasionally have starting time delays. During frost occurrences, I have to make the proper decisions to protect your asset and also to get you onto the course as quickly as possible. A few minutes delay heavily outweighs months of damage.