Rain, rain go away...It keeps adding up, and that means more stress on the greens. We've been hanging in there, but the past 45 days has been brutal. Sunlight is scarce even when it doesn't rain. Everything will be just fine in the long run, but we are seeing some adverse conditions on a few of the shady greens like 4, 7, 10 and 15. I've been in close contact with many of my peers about what they are experiencing. Most of them are also seeing decline in the turf on their shady greens. We believe the root systems on greens are weak from the harsh weather extremes over the past 12 months.
Last winter was very cold and relatively dry, but with a prolonged period of snow cover. Summer started in mid May and ended up being one of the hottest and driest on record. Anybody remember when we hit 101 degrees the day of the Charity Pro Am? October was double the average rainfall for the month and we are already double the average for November.
Everything I just listed is abnormal for our turf, and all of these weather extremes spell danger for the root zone. Add in the routine practice of aeration, which innevitably puts extra stress on the greens for a couple weeks, and you've got one heck of weak plant going into Winter. Keep in mind that aeration is very necessary, it's just the nature of the beast, you're going to hurt the plant for a short time for the long term health benefits.
Most of the turf is just fine, but the perennial weak greens due to shade are seeing the effects of Winter much more and much earlier than normal. We most likely came out of summer with a weak root system and now they have been water logged, cutting off oxygen exchange, resulting in even more stress. We are trying to back way off on anything that will cause stress to them outside of good old Mother Nature.
We are mowing and rolling less and less. Since we've backed off, there has been a "break" in the progression of turf decline in the shady areas. Let's hope this weather subsides soon and we can get back to somewhat of a normal maintenance routine. In the meantime, we need to be patient and give the greens a break.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
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