Dead Grass Recovery

[AddisonRoad]

If you live in the Southeast, you're well aware of how scorched courses are at the moment. I've never experienced conditions this dry (I only started playing in the last couple of years), so I was wondering: How long will it take for courses to recover once we get some rain?

 

[Mandofred]

From that dry summer we had a few years ago......about a year before the fairways were back to "normal" (or close enough). The really dead area's might have even taken a little longer.

 

[PhilTheFragger]

A few weeks mostly, but there will be areas that will need to be reseeded and they will take longer

There will be certain bits that will take 18 months to fully recover

 

[Imurg]

Good name for a band though....

 

[PhilTheFragger]

Good name for a band though....

And here’s the Agronomy Shuffle by Dead Grass Recovery
Not arf ??

 

[Lord Tyrion]

There is a little 9 hole links course near to me that goes brown most summers. One of the holes tees off from a hill and you look down on the course and the only green dots are the tees and greens. Everything else can go straw coloured. It's back to green within a few weeks, a month at most.

It clearly varies from place to place but grass is pretty darned tough.

 

[Oddsocks]

The fairways aren’t an issues as we still have some grass, im worries about the tee boxes as ours have pretty much turned to dust

 

[jim8flog]

One of the problems is that where there is a lot of heavy trolley traffic the grass may well have totally disappeared anyway. The only recovery from that is a reseed or returf.

We had to reseed many areas of one particular fairway a few years after a similar situation and will probably have to do so again this September.

In my opinion where the grass has just got parched and brown just a matter of a week or so after a good watering. Problem is with the forecast it may well brown out again.

 

[Crow]

The fairways aren’t an issues as we still have some grass, im worries about the tee boxes as ours have pretty much turned to dust

Our tees get an occasional watering, but this raises another problem.

They're one of the few areas where food can be found by badgers and so in the last few weeks we've had a lot of damage done to tees by hungry badgers, which causes much more damage than a bit of straw colour for a few weeks. I think it would be better to just move the tees to the fairway as a temporary measure.

 

[AddisonRoad]

Yes our tees are looking pretty horrible as well - shame these few months are going to keep course in disrepair for so long

 

[Oddsocks]

Our tees get an occasional watering, but this raises another problem.

They're one of the few areas where food can be found by badgers and so in the last few weeks we've had a lot of damage done to tees by hungry badgers, which causes much more damage than a bit of straw colour for a few weeks. I think it would be better to just move the tees to the fairway as a temporary measure.

This is where I’m all for decent tee mats for when needs must. The maintenance is low, during winter months all they need is a quick power wash and their lifespan triples at least. Just a shame clubs don’t clean the mats and they just compact and go rock solid.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Have heard that our green keepers may be discouraging us from taking our trolleys into the rough…no guidance from the club on that so most of us are continuing to do so. But I guess damage done to even the rough given how dry everything is could be a reason why.

 

[IanM]

The trouble happens when we get a wet autumn and worn areas get muddy before they recover. Then overseeding is needed but it's too cold for the seed to germinate.

 

[srixon 1]

Our course getting a good watering today. Hopefully it stops by 4:30 when I am due to tee off.

 

[r0wly86]

grass is an incredibly successful plant, can grow pretty much anywhere in any condition.

With some rain it won't take long for them to green up again

 

[2blue]

If you live in the Southeast, you're well aware of how scorched courses are at the moment. I've never experienced conditions this dry (I only started playing in the last couple of years), so I was wondering: How long will it take for courses to recover once we get some rain?

Last time we had this a few years back it took a whole year or more for many areas to fully recover & that was the case on a close-by sand-based course that had fairway irrigation. However I think they must had uprated the irrigation as it hasn't suffered as badly this time.

 

[D-S]

grass is an incredibly successful plant, can grow pretty much anywhere in any condition.

With some rain it won't take long for them to green up again

This is of course true but many worn areas like unwatered areas on tees and high wear areas have no plant left so will need extra help to recover be it seeding or returning.

 

[Doon frae Troon]

It is extremely difficult to kill grass in a natural state.
The change in our bowling green in one week is quite noticeable.
Our bowling green only gets watered by rain.

 

[D-S]

I played a local course at the weekend and obviously their irrigation system didn't provide adequate or enough coverage over the greens. 10-20% of each green mainly around the edges, but sometimes stretching into the middle. were either pure dust/sand and other areas were black. The grass in these areas was dead or no longer present. Perhaps it is the higher heat we have had down here but this grass had been killed.
The green areas look to have been cut at about 5mm so the difference between the areas was even more stark.