Frost Heaving and the XGD Relationship

I was following up with a client of ours from Marion,MA John Kelly of The Kittansett Club. Among other things on his mind, was the topic of frost heaving and its effects with our internal greens drainage process. It is usually about this time of year, after colder than normal winters, that I get a few calls from recent clients proclaiming that our lines have settled during the winter. Now looking at the sunken lines from a distance in this situation, they look terrible, and one would ascertain that immediate action needs to be taken to restore the sunken trenches.  But John, shared an experience of doing this at another club he was at (non-XGD project but in-house), where they immediately went out and topped up the sunken trenches, only to have the frost come completely out of the ground a week or two later and that club was left with raised trenches going in to the golf season before remedial action was taken.

In my humble opinion, the nearly 6′ wide push up frost slabs between our XGD laterals are always going to retain more moisture than the sand/organic mix in the pipe trench, and especially before going in to a freeze situation. This scenario inevitably will lead to a frost heaving situation when the frozen dirt begins to thaw unevenly as you will notice bumpy, frosty greens with or without our internal greens drainage process helping you out.

Hopefully not this bumpy but who knows what lurks under the snow cover?

So, I just ask everybody to be a little patient this time of year, and let Mother Nature run her course on your frosty greens. Once all frost is out of your greens, you will do a roll anyway to smooth the putting surface for mowing, and that should even out any humps and bumps along the way, including any greens drainage laterals that are messing with your mind.

Thanks, Poor Old Dirt & Grass Farmer