
I couldn’t think of a better activity on the first full day of spring than to venture outside. My trusty partners in crime, Dr. Ken Carey and Peter Purvis and I took some tools out to the research greens and research ranges to assess the current spring conditions. I like to bring them along because they know how to use and like using power tools.
What we found isn’t that surprising. There is a range in snow depth from no snow to over 30 cm. Any areas that had snow also had a very thick ice layer below. The ice layer ranged in thickness from about 5-8 cm thick. What contributed to this thick ice layer was several cycles of snow melting and freezing in place. Hopefully some of you have been able to get out and remove some of the snow off your greens to prevent this very thing from happening.
One positive thing is that we did detect any odours once we were able to crack through the ice. The only odour we were able to detect was from all of the goose poop on the exposed areas of the turf. On the flip side though, the weather forcast for the next 5 days only has three days with temperatures above 0C and two out of the 5 days have more snow in the forcast. Suffice to say, I don’t think it is going to feel like spring for a while.
The next several weeks of freezing and thawing cycles will be a great test of winterhardiness for our tall fescue and perennial ryegrass trials here at GTI. We look forward to having some interesting data to share with you once real spring finally does come.
I welcome your comments on what you are seeing out on your golf courses, sportsfields etc..