Hello,

Happy Holidays!  I’m sure many of us are ready to say goodbye to 2011 and welcome 2012.  Before I head back to my homeland of Wisconsin (Go Packers!) tomorrow for Christmas I thought I’d write just a few summary notes from 2011.

First, let me rewind – 2010 was brutal.  We all remember it.  Here in Kansas, the 2009-2010 winter was cold, with a lot of winter damage in our warm-season grasses:

Then, summer brought heat and too much moisture – lots of “steam cooked” roots:

Sometimes root Pythium was present, sometimes not – the turf was just croaking from the weather.

Well, if 2010 was the year of steam cooking, 2011 was a dry roast.  We had unrelenting heat, and rain was scarce.  I know, our friends and Oklahoma are saying, “Your weather was MILD compared to ours!!” but by Kansas standards it was rough.  I hope I never see this many 100+ days in one season ever again.

When temperatures (especially soil temperatures) are high, growth of our cool-season grasses ceases.  Photosynthesis is in the tank.  The turf is “deficit spending”, using up reserves.  Just like in our bank accounts, those reserves sometimes weren’t enough in the stressful heat of 2011.

Some tried-and-true agronomic practices saved the day in some cases -

• raise mowing height
• skip mowing (roll instead)
• hand water – and assign that task to a skilled crew member, not the rookie – to avoid overly wet roots
• remove trees to increase sunlight and improve airflow
• install fans
• keep up with spoon-feeding
• aerification to keep up with accumulation of organic matter
• etc…

Failure to keep up with these basics led to some tragic results in summer 2011.  There was no wiggle room.  Once the turf went down, it STAYED down.

I’m sure we are all hoping that 2012 will be better.  Moderate temperatures, adequate rain at convenient intervals… ah, yes, that would be nice.  But, chances are 2012 won’t be perfect.  While the cool-season grasses are still happy, in April, May, early June, take advantage of the good conditions to “put money in the bank” so that the reserves are higher when the stress conditions come around.  Don’t wait til the stress hits to initiate your best agronomic practices, when it is more of a rescue situation.  Though budgets may be tight, another thing we learned in 2010 and 2011 is that putting off practices like tree removal or fixing drainage problems led to major turf failures.

Happy New Year!  What are your 2012 New Year’s resolutions for healthy turf?