Into The Fire

We officially just hit our highest temp of the summer today, with the thermometer hitting 97 degrees, a full 15 degrees above our average high for today of 82.  With the way the temperatures have been in the last month, the turfgrass on the course has been thrown into the fire. 

For those of you who may regularly keep up with my blog, you may remember my predictions back in March after we had experienced an extremely dry and warm winter, and then the temperature soared to 30 degrees above average by the middle part of that month, that we were in for a hot and dry summer.  I don't claim to be Nostradamus, but things definitely look to be shaping up that way.  For just a quick comparison, up to this point in the summer we have already recorded 10 days of 90 degrees or greater, and we still have a week and a half left in July and all of August and September still to go.  In 2011 we recorded only 8 days the entire summer over 90 degrees, 10 days in 2010, and only 4 days in 2009.  The summer of 2012 will likely go down as one of the hotter and drier ones on record.   

While the hot temperatures are certainly an issue for the grass, there are a multitude of different factors that lead to turfgrass decline during the summer months, including:

• Hot daytime temperatures will literally cook grass.  Surface temperatures on a green during a sunny afternoon in the 90s without much wind can easily reach 105 to 110 degrees.
• Warm night time temperatures give the turf less cool down time and lead it to use up its carbohydrate reserves stored in roots faster than it can make new carbohydrates through photosynthesis during the day.  This leaves the plant with an energy deficit, using up more energy than it can create, and slowly causing the roots to die off
• Watering becomes a huge concern, most people don't realize that overwatering can kill the turf just as fast as an underwatered plant.  Especially on greens, water logged soils heat up faster and hold less oxygen, and will literally smother and kill the roots, which is even more exaggerated on humid days with little wind and warm nights that don't cool off the soils.  When you are standing on a green in the middle of the afternoon, sweating, and feeling like you can barely breathe because it is humid and there isn't any wind, the green you are standing on is literally suffocating.
• Disease pressure starts to skyrocket.  Hot and humid conditions turn the soils and turf on the golf course into a petri dish for fungal growth.  Another reason to watch how much we water, as wet and overly saturdated soils will grow turfgrass pathogens much more rapidly than in dry conditions.
• Mechanical stresses from our equipment makes matters worse.  With the NDGA match play this week we double cut the greens for 3 straight days and had the roller our for 5 straight days.  We are our own worst enemy by giving the turf the proverbial "kick when it is already down" by trying to keep playing conditions at their peak in this stressful time.

Double cutting greens on Wednesday

Fast and firm with the new roller



Textbook summer stress, especially on the collars from all the extra
compaction and abuse from where all the mowers and rollers
come on and off the green.


Now that we are starting to see some effects of a rough summer, there are some helpful actions we can take:

• Starting this coming week we will be raising mowing heights a little on the greens and collars and approaches.  A little extra leaf tissue goes a long way toward to plant health this time of year.
• Also, we will be mowing a little less often.  Cutting the grass plant in half everyday is a huge stress that requires the plant to use a lot of extra energy just to heal the wound.
• Hand watering becomes even more important.  Fortunately, we took the time this spring to add the extra quick couplers by the greens.  Delivering water only where it is needed on the greens allows the dry spots to get enough water, which the over head irrigation sometimes can't do, as well as allow the wet areas that don't need any extra water to dry out a little bit.
• Continuing to spray small amounts of foliar fertilizer and pesticides on a regular basis.  When the grass plant is stressed, they are much more suscpetible to being damaged by diseases.  Pesticides allow us to almost entirely eliminate that part of the equation.  Furthermore, small amounts of foliar fertilizer are quickly absorbed into the plant and give it a rapid boost of Nitrogen on a weekly basis to keep the plant photosynthesizing and producing carbohydrates.

Hand watering allows us to perfectly water the dry spots on the greens,
while keeping the rest of the green from being overwatered.

While the greens and collars have taken a bit of a hit recently, the fairways seem to be holding up quite well.  The main difference with the fairways is that their biggest threat is from a disease called Pythium, which our sand based greens aren't really threatened by.  Pythium grows in intensely hot and humid weather and wet soils.  While we have had the hot and humid conditiions this summer, we haven't had any massive rains from a thunderstorm that have left the course overly wet like we had frequently last summer.

Textbook pythium growing in 6 fairway in July of 2011

Pythium damage in 11 fairway in July of 2011

Looking down 11 fairway and Pythium damage in July 2011



11 fairway this July, hanging in there a little better

While I sure certainly love my job taking care of the course, the hot months of summer tend to raise my blood pressure a little bit.  Coupled with an alarm clock that goes off at 4:00am for 6 or 7 days a week, and hopefully you get an idea why I start really looking forward to those cool fall mornings this time of year...