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A Long Summer...


The season of 2012...Irrigation management was at the top of our priority for most of the summer season, which this year was from April to September. When managing a clay based golf course irrigation management can be tricky. When clay goes dry...it is very hard to re wet. When clay gets wet...it can take some time to dry out. Our goal has always been to find the balance in moisture management. Now throw in playability vs aesthetics as well as disease occurrence vs stressed turf, you are walking a fine line. This is why I have been heard repeatedly saying that it is not as easy as applying more water at night. There are far more variables other than the colour of the turf grass. During this past summer our area experienced record breaking temperatures coupled with extended drought periods. Currently our area is experiencing the seventh month in a row of lower than normal precipitation.
Commonly off colour turf grass is thought to be dead or in "bad shape". The term "dead" is a misnomer as turf grass goes dormant in times of extreme stress and recovers during times of lower stress (rain, cooler temperatures, etc). Dry, dormant or "off colour" turf was commonplace here at HCC this summer. Usually when golf courses don't look wall to wall green they are thought to be in bad shape. This of course is a matter of opinion, which everyone is entitled to.
What our department "hangs our hats" on is that once the aforementioned cooler temperatures and rainfall occurred, the golf course has bounced back to a healthy stand of turf grass that we had prior to the record breaking heat and drought conditions of 2012.

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