Getting through the Worst Environmental Golf Green Conditions

It has to have been the hottest/wettest/driest 60 days of summer I have seen in my 20 years in the business. All golf greens are struggling right now, even the best built greens if they are built in poor surrounding environmental conditions such as shade and poor air circulation.

USGA/XGD/California greens, they are all stressed out to the maximum as root storage for plant available food it is at a season low right now. Of course clubs are especially stressed through the midwest and from the mid Atlantic area through to the Northeast. Both high night time temperatures combined with flooding rains create anaerobic bathtubs with melting high temps causing turfgrass to boil above and below the surface. Emptying out the useless gravitational groundwater is one of the most single important insurance against boiled hot turf. Just creating a little extra pore space in the soil profile may be all it takes to keep your greens somewhat healthy through one of the more trying times to be a golf course superintendent in my memory.

I cannot emphasize the ability to needle tine your greens during this stressful period as well, it can relieve the myriad of gas built up in your rootzone. Typically, extremely non-invasive, but combined with some optimum soil moisture may give your greens a fighting chance this summer or next. Also, those looking to compliment your XGD System http://www.greensdrainage.com/ , should consider some deep tining in the spring/fall when conditions permit, as well as some dry-jecting and drilln’fill operations to help aid in the lateral movement of gravitational groundwater to the XGD greens drainage laterals. In this way most XGD clients more closely connect the upper soil profile with the lower soil profile in such a way to allow to groundwater to move more freely through the greens soil profile and out of the dreaded “bathtub” condition utilized in their original design over 100 years ago.

Cheers, Poor Old Dirt & Grass Farmer