Spring Recovery and Aerification

If you’ve taken advantage of the unseasonably warm weather that we’ve had for the past week and played a round at Blackhawk, you’ve had a chance to get a first-hand view of the winter damage that some of the greens suffered.  Luckily, it sounds as if we scared many of you with our communications throughout the winter and most have said that the greens are in better shape than expected.  However, there is very obviously some damage that isn’t going to disappear overnight, and we’d like to detail the causes for the injury and what we’re going to be doing about it.

There isn’t one simple cause of the damage that occurred.  On 3, 6, and the back half of 16, the damage was caused by prolonged ice cover.  Right around January 1, the majority snow on the course melted, but 3, 6, and 16 receive the most winter shade and the snow on these areas turned to ice.  After that, temperatures never warmed enough to allow for removal of the ice, and the ice cover essentially suffocated the plants by preventing the oxygen that’s necessary for respiration from getting to the plants.  On 7, 8, 14, and 17 greens, crown hydration was the cause of the damage.  During the spring, the Poa annua that comprises the majority of our greens is very quick to “wake up”, once temperatures climb above freezing.  Creeping bentgrass, on the other hand, is much slower to wake up and is therefore less susceptible to crown hydration damage.  Once the plants wake up, they begin taking up water, and during the cold nights, this water can freeze and rupture the plant’s cells.  Apparently, there was just the right amount of moisture on areas of 7, 8, 14, and 17 for the plants to wake up, take in water, and refreeze.  Also, if you look more closely at the pattern of damage on 7 and 8, there are some very distinct signs of damage being caused by people walking and skiing over these areas.  On 7, in particular, the majority of the damage is in a pattern from the back right of the green (where people walking from the village are most likely to enter) through the front middle.  Number 8 also has footprint-shaped and cross-country ski damage.  So, that’s the bad news and the reasoning behind it.  Now, onto what we’ve done and will be doing to recover…

In late March, we covered some of the worst areas to prevent any fragile seedlings from being harmed by frost and to warm the soil.  The covers did what we hoped they would and certainly sped the recovery of these areas.  Since they’ve been off, we’ve double verticut (blades that extend ½” into the soil) all of the damaged areas to provide channels for the Poa annua seeds that are already in the soil to germinate.  We’ve also been applying light, frequent fertilizer and irrigation application to promote germination.  This week, we spent a significant amount of time plugging out some of the bad areas on 8 and 14 with 120 healthy plugs from the chipping green.  While this practice is immediately effective, it’s extremely time-consuming and results in an uneven putting surface. At this point, we need to see some cooperation from Mother Nature for recovery to occur.  Certainly, the weather that we had over the past week helped us out, but the ten-day forecast is calling for temperatures that will do little to aid recovery.

We've already seen significant recovery on 17 green.  The above picture was taken on April 8 and the picture below on April 14.

Next Monday, April 18, we will again verticut the greens and dimple tine (aerifier attachment that creates a shallow ½” diameter dimple for germination) the damaged areas.  We will follow those processes with creeping bentgrass seed, a heavier fertilizer application, and light, frequent irrigation.  Essentially, this is the same program that we followed after receiving extensive damage during the 2008-2009 winter.  Another blog has good pictures of this process at: http://ivgcgrounds.blogspot.com/2011/04/16-green-seeding.html

This week, healthy plugs from the chipping green (below) replaced damaged turf on 14 (above).

On Monday, we will also be covering 17 green with a breathable cover that will provide the warmer microclimate that’s necessary for germination.  This means that 17 will unfortunately play to a temporary green.  Clearly, having a temporary green is something that no one desires, but it will allow the green to recovery as quickly as possible.  We hope you’ll agree that having a temporary green for a short period of time in the spring is better than having a damaged putting surface throughout the heart of the golf season.  You should also be warned that as the healthy grass begins to grow more rapidly and the damaged turf doesn’t, the greens will likely become bumpier than they are now.

Also, if you look at the golf calendar, you’ll see that greens aerification is scheduled to begin on April 24.  While we may decide to not aerify the aforementioned damaged areas, the remainder of the greens will be aerified like they are every spring.  And, if you’ve every questioned the importance of greens aerification, take a close look at some of the damaged locations, and in many areas, you will see areas of healthy turf that coincide with last year’s aerification pattern.  In other words, the plants in these spots were able to put down deep roots that allowed them to become stronger and survive the harsh winter.

Aligned, symettrical dots of healthy turf within a damaged area coincides with last year's aerification.

So, that’s probably enough not-so-great news for one post, but with the measures that we’ll be taking soon, it’ll all hopefully be a memory come mid-May.  Until then, you can be assured that we’ll be doing everything possible to get the greens back up to your (and our) expectations, and if you can arrange for warmer weather in the meantime, we’d definitely appreciate it.