At this point in the season XGD isn't functional. XGD is in the ground at a depth of 14", so with the ground being frozen any surface water cannot get through to the pipes in the ground. I know some are asking now why did we do the XGD then? The benefit we have with the XGD is that going into winter the greens profiles weren't overly saturated. If you remember back to the October and November of 2009 it was very wet. When we received all that rain in those months the greens profile was completely saturated and there was no room for any added moisture. With XGD that is no longer an issue as that system helps pull the water out when it has hit capacity for retaining moisture, thus opening up space for any added moisture.
This past fall and winter hasn't been as vicious as last years. Snowfall has been a greater but we haven't received the rain like last winter that then froze in the early parts of winter. Any ice that has formed this year was short term unlike last years where the ice formed early in the season and lasting for a great amount of time. In scientific studies they have seen where Poa can survive under constant ice for about 30-40 days where as Bentgrass can survive for about twice that if not more. Last season ice accumulation took place on December 27th and we were out on the course breaking that ice up on January 20th. The reasoning behind that is when ice forms it inhibits the exchange of oxygen and toxic gases with the atmosphere, by breaking the ice you get areas in there where the exchange can take place.
This season the ice formation has been moderate and short term, with most taking place last week with the warmer temperatures. Back to the question of "where is XGD working right now"? Well like I said 14" down nothing is happening as the ground is frozen, but I can say that as we reached 60 degrees and the temps stayed about freezing some of the upper surface had thawed. That upper surface that had thawed was able to absorb some of the water that came from all the melting snow but again with the amount of snow that melted there wasn't room for it all. As of Friday everything was pretty much clear, we did some snow removal on 3,4, and 13 green as those greens still had a great deal of snow on them.
I don't perceive us having issues like we did last spring. As a check we have brought inside plugs from greens 1, 6, 8, and 18 to see how the turf responded to the warmer temperatures. Here are some photos of the plugs:
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| This photo was taken Friday, February 18th. You can see the turf is a sandy brown color as it is dormant. |
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| This photo was taken Monday, February 21st. With being inside with warmer temperatures the turf has come out of dormancy. It has a nice green to it as well as some growth. This shows that the turf is still viable. |
Last season we did the very same plug test and there was a great deal of turf that wasn't greening up. That showed us that we had some winter damage and knew we had some work ahead for us come spring. With seeing these results I'm confident that we are in a good spot so far this winter.
I hope this has helped those with questions. As always if questions arise don't hesitate to shoot me a message. I can be reach at: justinv@briarwoodcountryclub.com