COV E R S TO RY
Winter is Coming:
PROTECT YOUR PUTTING
GREENS! By Thomas Walton, MS Student and Mike Richardson, Ph.D, University of Arkansas
W
idespread record low temperatures were experienced throughout much of Arkansas and the surrounding region in the late winter of 2021. At the Drake Field weather station, just south of Fayetteville, -20 °F was recorded on the morning of February 16th! However, it was not just the extreme temperatures that caused many warm season turfgrass managers to lose sleep, but it was the sustained amount of time temperatures remained below freezing. For a 10-day period from February 9th through the 19th, the air temperature did not exceed 32 °F. Sounds like a pretty good recipe for winterkill! One small silver lining during the cold February was a small blanket of snow during the middle of the cold stretch, a total of about 7 inches from February 14–17, correlating with the record low temperatures. Unfortunately, significant winterkill was reported throughout Arkansas and the surrounding region, particularly in Oklahoma and Texas. Many golf courses in north Texas with ultradwarf bermudagrass putting greens do not own protective covers because winterkill has historically not been a concern, were hit the hardest. Numerous golf courses required complete reestablishment of putting greens and large acreage of fairways, tees, and collars. Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, host of the Senior PGA Championship in the spring, had to quickly resod more than four acres of short-cut bermudagrass in preparation for the tournament, with most damage occurring on north facing slopes (MacLeod, 2021).
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10 • A R K A N S A S T U R F G R A S S • Winter 2021
