Factoid

I read turf grass periodicals while exercising and ran across a few tidbits I'd like to share with you.  Credit is given to Dr. Karl Danneberger at "The" Ohio State University.  Does anyone know why the "The" was used in the title?  It came as a result of a lawsuit with "The University of Ohio" or was it "The Ohio University?"  Whatever.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2011 was the second warmest year on record.  2010 was the fourth warmest.  In fact eight of the warmest years recorded since 1880 have occurred since 2001.

The reason he cited these facts is because stress accumulates over time and the consecutive hot summers has clearly stressed turf.  We can attest to that point and painfully I point to the conditions of our greens this past summer.

What can we do?  Simple, increase the amount of venting through aerification to modify the root system.  Reason?  Air cools faster than water.

Lets pray Mother Nature gives us a break this year and we start out the year with little to no winter injury.  Mk

Dry winter means more golfers, threat of desiccation - TurfNet.com

A little winter reading from the experts at Turfnet I thought I would share with you on this cold wintery day. Enjoy. Mk Dry winter means more golfers, threat of desiccation - TurfNet.com

What a difference a week makes.

It's incredible to think (or is it) that just one week ago our day time high temperature was 48 degrees!  My Doctor reported seeing golfers playing near Eau Claire.  Today my thermometer stated a not so balmy Minus Seven Degrees.  Now that's a frost delay.  _Mk.

Concerns going into Winter

While most people wore wide smiles with the record warmth earlier in the week of January 8th, winter finally arrived Wednesday evening.  The idea that it could snow that evening after a record daytime high of 48 degrees is absurd even by my standards.

My main concern now is what little snow/ice precipitation that fell over the weekend of the New Year had a chance to melt and form puddles.  This water had nowhere to go as drainage was nil due to frozen soils. Here is a photo of Tri City's 7th green.  Note how the collar height of cut dramatically reduces surface run off.  The ill effect of a poorly constructed flat pancake green.

In this photo if you look closely you can see the effects of our "poor mans" attempt to open up surface drainage through solid tine aerification after the course was closed for the season on October 31st.  Note the parallel lines of milky white ice.  I call it "poor mans" because it doesn't measure up to to the overall effects when we deep tined greens with .75" solid tines to a depth of 10".  After all our struggles with winter injury we felt any drainage was better than not doing anything at all.

I've been asked if this winters lack of snow and precipitation caused me any concern to date.  Because of the lack of super frigid air I said no, but now with the ice I'm going to change my answer to possible.  It's always possible isn't ?  Let's hope not. More later, we'll see you this Spring.  _Mk 

"F" is for Furlough

For the third time in 3 years the greens section staff is being laid off for the winter months.  So if you tried calling us out at the shop and received no answer at least now you know why. 

With that said, this blog will go dark until my boredom at home leads leads me to experimentation with the blogs design.  I've enlisted the help of Peter McCormick, founder of Turfnet, to enhance the look and function of this blog.  I've seen some of his work and like what see and I think you will too.

Once again, I have a newly expanded "honey do" list.  ( I've told you how much I dislike painting!) Stay tuned and I'll post interesting "tid bits" when I get the urge.  _Mk