Spring is an exciting time of year as maintenance activities ramp up to get golf courses ready for the busy season ahead. Unfortunately, unfavorable weather this winter has resulted in winter injury at a significant number of courses in the Northeast. The worst damage has occurred on Poa annua putting surfaces, but fairways and tees have also been affected.
Multiple freezing and thawing events, ice cover and slushy snowstorms seemed to be the primary cause of damage. The turf injury observed does not seem to correlate to any maintenance practices performed in fall or snow/ice removal during winter. However, shade and poor drainage always increase the risk of winter injury and have played a role in causing the damage.
The extent of the winter injury varies by location, but the most damage seems to have occurred in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. If you have damage, your facility is not alone. The spotty nature of winter injury can be perplexing and hard to explain. Greens located just a few hundred yards apart fared completely different this year, despite being in a similar growing environment. Many superintendents have also reported that the greens with winter injury this year haven’t had issues in the past.
The focus now should shift to a recovery program. This will involve the use of covers and darkening agents to elevate soil temperatures, maintaining adequate soil moisture and aggressive seeding programs. Plugging and sod may be needed for large areas that would take too long to recover from seed. However, it’s important to understand the full extent of the damage before getting too aggressive with seed or sod. Placing a few turf samples from damaged areas in a windowsill will accelerate greenup and help you plan for an appropriate recovery program.
Pressure will be felt to open severely damaged greens to play, but this should be avoided. Traffic from play will set back the recovery efforts and prolong the period needed to restore surfaces to their normal condition. The upcoming weather forecast isn’t favorable for promoting recovery, so try to be patient. I suspect greens with moderate damage will not be ready for play in April, and severely damaged greens might not be healed until the beginning of June.
To help plan an effective recovery program and learn strategies to prevent winter injury, contact your USGA agronomist.
Northeast Region Agronomists:
Adam Moeller, director, Green Section Education – amoeller@usga.org
Darin Bevard, senior director, Championship Agronomy – dbevard@usga.org
Elliott L. Dowling, senior consulting agronomist – edowling@usga.org
John Daniels, agronomist – jdaniels@usga.org
