Mid-Winter Update

We’re at about the midway point for the “off-season”. Our department has been busy detailing, rebuilding and sharpening over 100 pieces of equipment. We’ve been restoring course accessories through sanding, staining, sealing, painting and cleaning. Budgeting, planning, and reviewing our operation, along with tree work has kept us busy as well.

As far as the golf course, so far this year winter we’ve had plenty of moisture, unfortunately not in the form of snow. If you’re like me and enjoy skiing and winter sports, it’s been more than disappointing. When we’ve been fortunate enough to receive snow (10″ so far), it has quickly melted with warm weather that’s followed. The trend of wet weather that started in the spring of 2016 seems to be continuing. 2016 was the wettest year on record (145 years)! Here’s a graph that was created by the National Weather Service that reviewed 2016:

The ground moisture is good, there’s no questioning that. When the ground freezes, however, that’s a different story. Once the ground is frozen solid, there is no where for the moisture to go which usually equates to ice formation. We cover our greens, mainly because we want to protect the weaker turf species, Poa Annua, from its weakness of poor winter survival. The covers keep the ice from forming and coming in direct contact with the Poa. If we had all Bentgrass, there would be no need to cover as Bentgrass is much more suited to survive weather extremes, including ice.

 

On Christmas day, we literally had a thunderstorm. I can’t remember anything like it.

 

We had over an inch of rain at the course which melted most of the remaining snow we had. The following day, all of that moisture froze and created ice. Some of it ran down into low areas, some of it went into the drainage inlets, some of it froze while trying to flow somewhere. Areas where there was large pooling, there was no drainage (surface or sub-surface), or it was flat, ice formed. We do everything in our power to combat this scenario. Our putting surfaces are our most important asset so we use covers to protect them, sandbag areas where surface water flows onto those surfaces and deep tine aerify them right before covering, hoping any moisture that gets under the covers has a chance to get into the ground before freezing.

Maybe most important is that we manage towards growing more Bentgrass. This golf course is nearly 100 years old, as is the turf. The Poa Annua is our biggest liability because it needs more fungicides, water and an extremely poor survival mechanism in adverse conditions. This is why we try so hard to grow Bentrgrass. It needs less inputs, is a smoother/faster/firmer surface, is more consistent in growing habits and can survive harsher conditions. I’m not going to get into climate change/trends but I will state that you cannot argue you want to be growing a crop that sets you up for success not failure. Over the past 10+ years, Midland has been removing trees. The most important aspect of our Tree Management Plan, other than player/staff safety, is turf health. Shade=Poa, Sun=Bentgrass. We have corrected many shade issues on greens, tees and fairways. Certain greens such as #1, 6, 7, 12 and 15 which are in pockets, surrounded by perimeter trees will always have more Poa and more liability. Where we can, the Greens Committee has removed trees that cast shade of greens and most of the playing surfaces. Since implementing our Tree Management Plan, we have made substantial gains in growing more Bentgrass, thus reducing our liabilities where we can.

We’ve been installing drainage at Midland since the 1950’s. There can never be enough drainage on property, given our thick soils. Recently we have purchased equipment to help us install it efficiently and in the past few years we’ve made significant improvements to the beginning of #3 fairway, the bottom of 18 and just this past Fall on 14. Even during the winter months, the drainage system can still function.

Here is how the beginning of 18 looks right now.

As you can see, there is ice, approximately 6″ thick at the beginning of the fairway. There is an inlet and drainage but for some reason, the inlet was not installed in the lowest part of the collection area. There is a Master Plan that prioritizes drainage improvements and this area is on that list. You can see there’s a pipe sticking up vertically. This is for a reason.

Upon closer inspection, you can see that there is no ice around the drainage inlet. The pipe is installed for 2 reasons. First the black color of the pipe attracts heat from the sun and melts ice. Secondly, it creates a wind vortex which also helps keep ice clear around the opening. When the temperatures reach the mid 20s and the sun is shining, and there is no shade, it’s enough to melt the ice and water flows into the drain. This specific area is predominately Bentgrass so I have little concern over the ice.

Just because we have ice, doesn’t mean we will suffer Winter-Kill. There are several factors that need to take place to kill turf. All of the areas of ice are documented and we will monitor them throughout the next 60 days. During warm up periods we will assist the snow melt by creating channels, allowing the melt to flow as quick as possible into inlets and off flatter areas. Again, I’m not trying to cast a cloud of bad news. I’m always optimistic that things will turn out because we plan to prevent damage from occurring and we plan to address challenges like these.

Our department’s education season is about to start, we’ll be attending local and national trade shows to get updates on the latest research results on several topics of Turf Management and to network with turfgrass managers from around the world. The USGA has put out their 2016 Green Section Turf Compendium. If you’re interested in learning about drainage, winter kill and other turf topics, there are some great articles. Please contact me if you have questions after reading any of them.

https://cloud.3dissue.com/73035/73358/177943/2017Compendium/index.html

Enjoy!

Mike Manthey