With Labor Day right around the corner, someone forgot to tell Mother Nature to turn down the heat. In fact, she has kept up the heat well into September or early October in recent years. Conversely, she seems to hold the heat until May, when she used to let it loose in April.
This shift in the seasonal weather pattern has several implications for golf courses and superintendents. First, it shifts some preemergence herbicide applications later into the spring, or even early summer. The variable spring weather patterns also influence annual bluegrass weevil activity and subsequent applications.
As for summer, it means you need to be flexible with planning cultural practices and potentially use dates later in the season when cooler weather is more likely to occur. In addition, plan for regular maintenance to continue later into the fall than what used to be considered normal. This means that turf health needs to hold on for 30-45 more days as well. Even in a normal year this is a challenge, but when the weather is as hot and dry as it has been this year, courses are struggling to balance plant health with playability and golfer traffic.
It's uncertain if seasonal weather patterns will one day return to what we used to consider normal. What we do know is that superintendents must plan with the information they have, and right now summer weather seems to be lasting until the end of September or early October. Control the variables that you can but be ready to adjust programs when necessary and know that golf courses are likely going to show some stress late in the year. Grass and maintenance teams are tired this time of year, and while one of them can take a few days off and rest, the other must deal with constant heat, cart traffic, unrepaired ball marks, lack of rain and countless other stressors placed on it.
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