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| #8 South Green Covered for Winter |
Today we're covering select greens with permeable tarps to protect them from winter injury. The question of "why do we need to cover greens?"and "what do the tarps actually do?" often come up. A few things are taken into consideration when deciding to cover greens. Hopefully this will help explain the reasoning behind it.
1. Greens that are in the shade due to the close proximity of surrounding trees normally suffer from lack of sunlight during the growing season and are the last greens to come out of winter dormancy in the spring. These same greens tend to hold sheets of ice in the spring during snow melt due to shade and/or poor drainage. In this situation, the winter covers help warm the surface and reduce some of the ice damage on the plant. Sheets of ice trap harmful gasses released by the plant as well as causing injury to the plants crown resulting in possible death of the turfgrass. The covers help warm the surface in the spring and allow gasses to pass through which can lead to less ice injury and a quicker green up.
2. The second reason greens may to need covers is because of the possibility of wind desiccation. Greens that are elevated can often have issues with this. The tarps offer nice protection from the cold wind and help hold in some moisture during the tough winter months.
3. Tarps often provide earlier spring green up to areas that are covered and get the plant off to a healthy start for the season.
The greens that we have selected to cover this year are as follows: 8 South, 9 South, 1 West, 8 West, 9 West, 5 North, 8 North, 9 North
