At clubs and courses throughout Florida, final preparations for the winter golf season are currently the main focus of efforts. As noted in Todd Lowe's October 9th Florida regional update, below average rainfall has occurred during the late summer and early fall; and thus a moderate to severe drought situation continues to exist throughout most areas of the state. Water use restrictions remain in place, and, in all likelihood, will be increased since the winter and spring months are the normal dry season.
Given this situation, all facilities should reevaluate winter management programs and practices such as overseeding. Especially through the central and northern part of the state, large acreage winter overseeding programs have been routinely performed to produce a lush green, actively-growing turf cover that provide play and aesthetic characteristics in keeping with seasonal golfer expectations.
Yet, establishing and maintaining an overseeding cover requires increased irrigation. While an adequate amount of water may be available at this point in time for establishment of overseeding, additional water use reductions may be mandated in the future. A major question is whether or not large acreage overseeding is a sustainable practice over the short and long term.
In the spring of 2007 when the current drought situation was beginning to fully take hold, practices such as raising mowing heights, applying wetting agents and growth regular treatments, and cart traffic control were measures that could help minimize problems. Now is the time to discontinue growth regulator treatments in central and northern Florida as the turf growth rate naturally slows in response to a shorter day length and cooler temperatures.
If it has not already been done to increase both wear and drought tolerance, immediately raise tee, fairway, and rough heights of cut. On bermudagrass tees and fairways, a height of cut range of 0.60 to 0.75-inch is suggested, and bermudagrass roughs, should be mowed at 1.5 to 2.0-inch. However, a rough height of cut higher than 1.75-inch can be quite penal for average to high handicap golfers and can slow the pace of play. Making sure that adequate potassium availability exists is another important consideration for maximizing turf drought tolerance.
Every winter complaints arise about very tight fairway lies and the loss of definition between the fairway and roughs. This is because the inactive base bermudagrass becomes beat down from cart traffic and is not actively growing so no recovery can take place. Enforce cart usage policies and directional control devises such as signs and ropes to minimize winter damage and course deterioration as much as possible. Cart traffic control becomes even more critical in drought situations and it is not too early to implement traffic control measures. Both bermudagrass and seashore paspalum have good drought tolerance, but if early winter season wear and damage is experienced, recovery will not occur until the spring to early summer of next year.
The lower southeast coast of Florida is the one area of the state where a lack of rain and drought conditions is not a major course management concern at this time. More than 10-inches of rain fell in October, and year to date total rainfall for Palm Beach County is 3 to 4-inches above average. With the frequent and, at times, very heavy rainfall over the two months, lake and groundwater levels are quite high and the persistence of saturated soil conditions has contributed to course management challenges. In addition to the difficulty of adhering to routine mowing frequencies, a flush of weeds and mole crickets has occurred. As a result, catch up pesticide treatments are required to reestablish more acceptable control levels.
Rainfall has been very concentrated along the coast, and Lake Okeechobee, the primary backup water source for all of South Florida, is not at an adequate levels heading into the winter and the dry season. If sufficient rainfall does not occur to raise the lake level over the next few weeks the lower east coast of Florida will again be faced with water use restrictions.
Source; John Foy, jfoy@usga.org or 772-546-2620
