As you can see in our data accumulated here at Sunshine Course rainfall has been voluminous and prolonged over the last week. It means you may have run into a range of management problems which will have short term and long term effects on your golf course. As courses vary the impact of the rainfall you may have had will also vary. Drainage, temperature and level of submersion are all issues that will play a role in the health of your turfgrass during periods of high precipitation. Fortunately temperatures have not been excessive recently and this will save any major problems for golf courses in the current period. However if similar conditions arise, combined with increasing water temperatures (50 - 86°F), extended periods of submersion will become a greater problem. Another 2 inches is predicted over the weekend also!
Good aeration practices, drainage and practices aimed at maintaining healthy turf will help managers get through the periods of extended submersion that some locations may be suffering from. The rainfall we have dealt with over the last week is certainly enough to have clay soils at field capacity (45-50% volumetric water content) and some golf greens have been at 30% volumetric water content (VWC) or higher. We have been able to measure this using the recently purchased TDR device which we wrote about last week.
Click here to view the May 31, 2013 Scouting Report.
As always if you have a question or query please do not hesitate to ask and you can call or email.
Ed Nangle PhD
Director of Turfgrass Programs
Chicago District Golf Association
www.cdgaturf.org
Follow us on Twitter @TurfResearch
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