Recovery of drought damage on golf courses

The summer months are exceptionally dry. Golf courses turn from green to yellow and from yellow to brown. Is there still life in your tee or fairway? What should you do to get a lovely green tee or fairway again and what dangers may be lying in wait? This First Aid for Drought Damage for gold courses aims to answer these questions.

 

With our exclusive step-by-step plan, you can once again create a healthy, vital golf course in no time!

First of all, perform the First Aid for Drought Damage test!

Before proceeding, perform the First Aid for Drought Damage test here. Then read below how to restore your sports fields in no time at all.

Restoring golf courses in the event of drought damage

1. Make sure that all dead grass plants and any felt are removed by scarifying or tickle harrowing the turf and clearing this dead material.

 

2. Check for water repellency by performing the droplet test.

 

Droplet test:

The following test gives a good indication of the water repellency of the soil:


A. Use the shovel or gouge to cut out a piece of turf.
B. Place a drop of water at every 2 cm depth.
C. If it takes more than 1 minute for the droplet to be absorbed by the soil, the soil is too water repellent for normal recovery of the turf. Overseeding with ordinary grass seed will have no effect.

 

 

  1. Water repellent?

Resolve the issue of water repellency using a wetting agent. 

 

  1. Choose the right mixture of grass seeds for recovery

There is a wide variety of grass mixtures available for golf courses depending where the problem site is on the course and the intended purpose of the mixture. For each situation, there’s an ideal solution. The application for greens is very specific. If you want to restore a patch of creeping bent, use mixtures that include Yellow Jacket Water Manager technology. In dry and water-repellent soils, seeds with this treatment make water available for germination and establishment of new grass.

Not all grass seed mixtures are suitable for a fairway or tee to recover quickly. In addition, the danger of weeds taking over is always lurking around the corner! There are lots of weed seeds in the soil that can fill any vacant spots at lightning speed. Meadow grass also takes over vacated areas rapidly and weakens the turf, which will become even weaker during the next period of stress. For a quick solution, it’s therefore imperative that you use a grass seed mixture that germinates and establishes itself rapidly, so that it can compete against this unwanted invasion. The mixture that fills bare patches quickest is Bar Extreme RPR® or Bar Intensive RPR® with its stolon-forming perennial ryegrass. If you want to invest in a future-proof solution that is better equipped to cope with extreme situations, choose Resilient Blue® Golf. This is also the best solution for water-repellent fairways as the seeds in this mixture have been treated with Yellow Jacket Water Manager. The mixture has been specially developed for extreme climate conditions such as sweltering heat, exceptional drought or torrential rain. Resilient Blue® Golf takes the punches of extreme stress and fights back! This mixture takes longer than the RPR mixtures to establish completely and is a long-term investment in the future.

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