
Patches of different shades brown turf on GTI research range
Well …….. maybe not fifty, but there are many dead areas of turf and the range of colour of dead or damaged turf is astounding. Also, I don’t think this post is going to be a bestseller. I guess the reason for the range is that there have been many pathways to the death of turf this spring. There is definitely dead Poa annua that died of anoxia (too many days under the ice cover), Poa annua that may have died from direct low temperature injury, or crown hydration and even in some cases perhaps desiccation, not to mention snow mould and there may even be some damaged creeping bentgrass. The colours don’t really mean anything and some of that brown turf may green up. The extent of the damage is still not clear in many areas. Let’s hope the next three days of temperatures in the double digit will help reveal the extent of the damage.

Green Kentucky bluegrass and fine fescue in the foreground and brown perennial rye and tall fescue in the background
On home lawns and sportsfields, there is plenty of snow mould injury but there is also the possibility of winter injury to our most susceptible lawn and sports turf species perennial ryegrass and tall fescue.
Next steps?
Many of you are still in the assessment phase and until you have a handle of the extent of the damage it is hard to have a comprehensive plan. Covers can speed up recovery, especially if we continue to have a colder than normal spring. Companies that have been supplying covers have had them flying out of their warehouses. There have been many questions about the best type of covers or which colour is preferable for warming up soils and promoting turf seed germination. Interestingly enough, there doesn’t seem to be any good information on this. You want to be able to warm up the soil on a sunny day and prevent the heat loss from the soil on cool nights, so not sure what works best for that. At this point, the best type of cover is any one that you can lay your hands on.
Prepare damaged areas to maximize seed to soil contact. A common method on golf greens to achieve this is to core aerate, topdress, seed and then go over badly damaged areas with a Jobsaver to maximize the seed to soil contact. On home lawns and sportsfields, scalp the turf to create as much seed to soil contact as possible and either slit seed or broadcast the perennial ryegrass seed. As mentioned above, covering the greens or damaged areas of sportsfield will help speed up the germination and recovery efforts. Adding phosphorus has also been demonstrated to help speed establishment. MSU Turf blog has a good summary of actions to take to recover from winter injury at http://www.msuturf.blogspot.ca/. Even with covers, it will require some cooperation from Mother Nature to get speedy turf recovery this spring.
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