Spring 2014 Turf Recovery in Pictures

The winter of 2013-2014 was tough on turf.   The cold temperatures and snowfall lead to a lot of dead Poa. Many golf courses were left with large areas of dead turf that had to be seeded, sodded, or otherwise coaxed back into playable shape.  At Sugar Creek, the rough, greens, and most tees survived the winter fine but the fairways are another story.  In areas of shady floodplain, solid layers of ice sometimes a foot thick formed and eventually suffocated the Poa annua that calls these areas home.  After a lot of aerifying (3 times), slit-seeding, levelling, watering, and sodding, the fairways were almost 100% filled in by the end of May.  I'll be the first to admit that Mother Nature did most of the work -- we can't do anything without the right temperatures, moisture levels, and sunlight to grow plants -- but we significantly sped up the process and made some progress against Poa.

Here are some pictures from the last 3 months that dramatically illustrate the recovery:

7 Fairway - April 12, 2014

Here you can see some of the creeping bentgrass we have been able to get growing after the floods in 2010 and 2013 (and the heat wave in 2012).  Everything green in the fairway is bentgrass. Everything brown is Poa annua. 

7 Fairway - April 12, 2014

7 Fairway after slit-seeding  - April 25, 2014

Below you can see the fairway filling in with new seedlings.  We wish they were all bentgrass seedlings, but many are coming from the dormant Poa annua seedbank in the soil.  At this point, you take what you can get!

7 Fairway filling in - May 30, 2014

 

And below is now.  You can tell we had moderate temps and a lot of rain recently!

7 Fairway - June 27, 2014

7 Fairway from the reverse angle:

The first fairway suffered similar damage but not as extensive.  As an experiment, we slit-seeded T-1 creeping bentgrass when it was still very cold at the end of March and had seed coming up in April.  It filled in quickly after that.

Slit-seeding germination - April 25, 2014

 

These photos were taken of the 1st fairway toward the tee:

 



Bug Spray Harms Turf

It's that time of year again!

I have received a few questions about the mysterious patches of light tan turf that appeared over the weekend.  This is one turf problem that has a simple explanation:  Whenever the weather is muggy and buggy, we experience an outbreak of "bug spray disease."  Most golfers do not know that their insect repellent will harm turf, especially when directed at legs and ankles.  The overspray usually leaves a pattern of a green footprint or footprints surrounded by straw-colored injured turf. 

The solution to this problem is to spray legs and ankles on a cart path or other non-turf surface where the overspray will not contact grass.  Depending on conditions and the amount of spray on the grass, these spots usually recover in 1-4 weeks.  In extreme cases, though, they can result in the death of the patch of turf. 

Bug spray injury on a tee with a footprint in the center



Bug spray injury on a green collar

Can you see the footprint?

 Hopefully these pictures will help us all remember to use bug spray on the cart path.  I know it has slipped my mind in the middle of a mosquito attack.  Next time you golf on a buggy day, please help us educate others about the cause of the mysterious green footprint disease.