Cov e r S to ry
Winter Injury on Arkansas Turf By Eric DeBoer, Mike Richardson, Ph.D., and Doug Karcher, Ph.D.
The
Arkansas climate is such that injury to warm-season turfgrasses is almost always a possibility during the winter months, especially in the northern region of the state. The most common causes of winter injury are sustained low temperatures, low temperature spikes, unseasonably warm temperatures followed by freezing temperatures, and turfgrass tissue desiccation. Certain species of turf have a better chance of surviving extreme cold temperatures than others. Turfgrasses that produce underground stems (rhizomes), such as bermudagrass and zoysiagrass, are better equipped to withstand extreme cold temperatures when compared to grasses like St. Augustinegrass or centipedegrass, which produce only aboveground stems (stolons). Many cultivars of bermudagrass, including Latitude 36, North8 • A r k a n s a s T u r f g r a s s • Spring 2019
bridge, Riviera, and Tahoma 31, have demonstrated increased resistance to winter injury when compared to older bermudagrass cultivars. Certain sitespecific characteristics can also play a role in determining the extent to which low temperatures will injure a stand of turf. Areas receiving large amounts of traffic, north facing slopes, heavily shaded areas, and poorly drained soils all have an elevated risk of winter injury. Until now (mid-January at the time of this writing), the winter weather of 2018/2019 has been somewhat atypical in Arkansas. The duck hunters across the state can certainly attest that some early cool weather in November pushed a lot of ducks and geese into the state, but milder conditions in most of December and early January then slowed the migration considerably. As December and January are typically the
coldest months of the year, we would normally expect a few extreme lowtemperature periods during that time. This winter, we have only had a few days where low temperatures in the northern half of the state dipped below 20 °F and only one or two days where temperatures were near 15 °F (see Figure 1), which is the target temperature where we might expect some low-temperature damage. In addition, we have had over six inches of rain in most of the state since early December and that has been coming consistently from week to week, so concerns over excessively dry conditions and turf desiccation should also be at a minimum. Compared to last year, where we had extended periods of singledigit lows and very dry and windy conditions, we should be in much better shape coming out of this winter. Of course, turfgrass managers should
