Covering Greens

We made a decision Monday to cover greens.  The forecast was not good for the week until Friday.  We also decided to do it early to beat the rain that we received Tuesday.  1.25" fell lightly ALL DAY.  As temps fell the rain turned in to a light dusting of snow which has already melted.  So being proactive and covering on Monday, we were able to beat the rain and today's wind gusts of up to 40 mph.  Trust me today would not be ideal for covering.

So greens will be ready for play Friday at 11:00.  The MGA Blue Monster will shotgun as soon as the course is ready.  Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Guidelines For Covering Greens

 

We know from cold-chamber studies that plant death will occur at a soil temperature

below 20°F. These trials also demonstrated that exposure to soil temperatures down to

25°F for less than one week does not cause great harm. Given this information you

could, in theory, attempt to monitor and predict soil temperatures in deciding when to

cover greens. This would require a great deal of experience with soil temperatures from

years past and the interaction with all of the factors mentioned above. The danger with

this approach is that once the soil temperature has fallen to a dangerous level there, is no

way to get it back up, whereas if you had covered you could have retained enough heat to

keep the soil temperature at a safe level.

Because of the great number of variables and the impossibility of accurately quantifying

each of them, there is no “formula” based on weather conditions for determining when to

cover greens. Even if we could quantify each of the variables, there is still the

unpredictability of the weather. The best we can do is come up with a set of general

guidelines:

Circumstances when we would recommend using covers:

 If the overnight low temperature is forecast to be below 20°F

 If it is February or later and a freeze is forecast for more than 12 hours

 If the forecast is for temperatures below freezing for more than 36 hours

 If your greens suffered any stress in fall, were not completely healthy going into

winter, or were planted late in the year - cover anytime it is below 25°F

 If frozen precipitation is forecast, realize that you might not be able to apply the

covers later because they may become frozen or covered with ice

 If you know that it will be difficult to round up enough help to apply covers later

when weather conditions worsen or because of holidays

The last circumstance is probably the one that causes the most trouble. Who wants to get

outside and wrestle with covers in a 30 mph north wind and sub-freezing temperatures?

Just realize that if you wait too long to make a decision, then the decision might get made

for you when you can’t find the personnel to apply the covers.

Conservative Approach. If conditions are borderline and you can’t decide whether or not

to cover, we recommend that the covers be applied, given the significant costs associated

with loss of turf in the spring. The cost of dead turf (replanting, lost revenue, possibly

lost jobs!) in May is many times greater than the cost of labor to cover in December.