Undersoil heating of greens - USGA article

[Thomas Dai]

This was just posted on social media by the USGA Greens Section -

Here's the link to the USGA article -

https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/course-care/water-resource-center/bmp-case-studies/2018/preventing-winter-injury.html
Curious to know how common this technique is?
atb

[Jeff Schley]

Thomas,


This is interesting and northern climates, such as Canada in this article, I always assumed getting the greens back in shape was just part of the supers jobs. I didn’t think anything can be done to insulate them the weather, outside of putting greenhouses tenting the greens in the winter (weird idea perhaps, but I get them from time to time).


I’d like to see more data on this technique as it seems simple and temporary for the winter and move the sod back into place afterwards. Low cost as well.




Anyone know of other techniques to help protect greens in winter climates?

[John Emerson]

Another great example of how the climate warming is having major impacts on golf.  In the past these may have stayed snow covered or frozen.  The snow/freezing, then melting, then refrezzing again quickly cycle can take out turf quickly.

[Joe Hancock]

Another great example of how the climate warming is having major impacts on golf.  In the past these may have stayed snow covered or frozen.  The snow/freezing, then melting, then refrezzing again quickly cycle can take out turf quickly.

I would love to know if this is actually true. For example, my anecdotal observations over the past several years is that a) there seems to be more energy put towards avoiding ice damage(or whatever it is that is actually happening), and b), the vast majority of *ice damage* happens at high-budget golf courses.


Is it global climate change, is it more frequent maintenance procedures(such as rolling, top dressing, brushing, etc.) or is it more frequent applications of plant protectants? I’m afraid the answer is a combination of things that many don’t want to admit. Some things are avoidable, and some aren’t.

[Tom_Doak]

 the vast majority of *ice damage* happens at high-budget golf courses.

Thank you for mentioning this.  One of the things we never talk about when discussing green speeds is the cumulative stress of having them on a year-round basis.


It's amazing how that article never mentions that they should maybe FIX THE POOR SURFACE DRAINAGE ON THE GREENS.


One of my old friends used to say about another greenkeepr who wrote many articles for the turf magazines, "Every article is about dead grass or how to fix dead grass."  He was a big proponent of not killing the grass to begin with.

[Thomas Dai]

Although I didn’t mention it in the OP when I first read this article the phrase that popped into my head was ‘First World problem’. Still seems valid.
Atb

[Wayne_Kozun]

I don’t think that is very common here in Canada, but lots of clubs do put tarps on some or all of the greens. In terms of higher end clubs having more ice damage, that is likely because older club tend to have old greens that have more poa. When we had lots of ice damage in southern Ontario a decade ago it was old clubs like St Georges, Hamilton, Scarboro, etc that suffered the worst damage.

[Justin VanLanduit]

It is quite interesting the lengths that people are finding to go anymore to protect from winter damage.  Often due to how hard it is to recover from it, many time not getting things back till late spring to early summer but some areas even later due to longer winters. I know hydronic systems are starting to be put in place, Southern Hills Country Club and Merion just recently put hydronic‘s in their greens giving them the ability to control soil temperatures by running water through tubes in the greens.  Similar the heated floors. Granted those are more prominent clubs I doubt it becomes a common place throughout the golf course world but it is quite interesting. Recently a photo was shown on Twitter of Southern Hills country club after Tulsa got a blanket of snow and their greens were completely clear so, assuming they had the hydronics set to keep the soil temperatures up and no snow stuck to those surfaces.
I believe there is a direct correlation between climate change as well as the demands for green speeds. Once Superintendents push their greens to get speeds often the complete health of the turf is sacrificed due to abiotic and biotic stress only opening them up to some type of failure if dealt a curveball like weather.  No longer are we seeing in some northern state climates winters where you get that early snowfall and it sticks around. Anymore, there are great fluctuations between precipitation and temperatures leading to more issues of ice accumulation.  Once that happens the count starts as to how many days ice is present especially when dealing with Poa.
A recent golf course where I was director of grounds had issues with winter damage; some years none some years more and in 2010 we had significant winter damage therefore showing us we needed to take measures for the future. At that point we addressed; trees/shade, poor surface drainage, installation of subsurface drainage in our push up greens, and regrassed to a bentgrass giving us a grass that was basically bulletproof for weather on the North Shore of Chicago. I think often in the golf course market people are reluctant to be proactive due to cost and interruption of play to address items and set them up for success in the long term.  Often it’s a sit n see mentality even though the signs are there.
The amazing thing about winterkill is just when you think you have it figured out something changes and it makes you think in a complete opposite direction.  For the longest time people felt covers were the best protection even though sometimes covers can be the worst because water that sits between the cover and the turf can freeze and thaw often, therefore putting the turf into a bit of a head spin. It’s interesting to see some inventive ways that guys have gotten with the covers, see anything for straw to bubble wrap, you name it, at the end of the day everybody’s doing what they can to hopefully fend off winter damage. 
I remember in 2010 when we had our damage; we had a heavy rain on Christmas Eve 2009, roughly an 1.5”, the day after it was in the teens, freezing all the standing water.  Following the freeze we ended up with about 7 inches of snow on top of the ice. At that point the clock began, after 20 days we were out trying to break up the ice by using hand methods as well as a vibratory plate compactor which did a really good job of fracturing the ice.  We made the decision to leave the ice in place because now gas exchange was able to take place and we didn’t want to open the turf up to the cold temperatures.  Shortly after breaking up the ice[size=78%] we had a warm weekend which ended up melting all the ice and I think that was what really caused the damage, we lost the insulation on the turf that really wasn’t hardened off for winter opening up the lush Poa to very volatile temperature extremes.[/size]
[/size][size=78%]It sucks!  Cause your basically having to sit and wait till things become active to really see what happens.  [/size]