Summer Stress

~ I could spend hours rehashing the record drought and heat we have experienced this summer, but at this point, it looks like it is here to stay and we need to move forward and deal with it as best we can.  The extreme weather causes us to alter our daily and weekly management practices to ensure turf health and one of these ways if to vent (aerify) certain areas of the course to ensure that water and air are getting to the roots as easily as possible.  This is even a larger problem in any areas that have high concentrations of Annual Bluegrass (Poa).  Much of the golf course is a mix of Creeping Bentgrass and Annual Bluegrass but the concentrations vary depending on the hole and the area in question.  Poa suffers from heat and drought stress much more readily than Creeping Bentgrass and we have to intensively manage it during this high-stress periods.  Even with irrigation, intensive hand-watering and other cultural practices, high air and soil temperatures can cause Poa to go into a physiological decline.

Poa stress is not always a bad thing, as it does help the Creeping Bentgrass ever so slowly take over. Many of these areas will be overseeded with newer varieties of Bentgrass in the coming weeks and hopefully this will mean less and less stress damage in the future.  However, when the Poa under stress is the 13th green (which is 70% Poa), it is an altogether different story. ~