By Sigridur Dalmannsdottir1, Trygve S. Aamlid1, Anne Friederike Borchert1, Siri Ahlskog1, Håkan Blusi2, Michelle DaCosta3 and Dominic Petrella4
1Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, 2Swedish Golf Federation, 3University of Massachusetts, 4University of Minnesota
A new transatlantic partnership for winter turf research is now taking shape as researchers in Scandinavia and the United States join forces through the new AURORA GREEN project, funded by the Scandinavian Turfgrass and Environment Research Foundation (STERF). The collaboration brings together researchers and field networks in North America with Nordic expertise in managing long and variable winters. Together, the partners aim to generate new knowledge on how turfgrass survives winter stress and recovers in spring, with direct relevance for golf course management in cold climate regions.
AURORA GREEN builds on the strong foundation established by the earlier ICE-BREAKER and WinterTurf projects. These initiatives have significantly advanced our understanding of winter injury (Figure 1) in turfgrasses and underscored the value of closer collaboration across regions facing similar seasonal challenges.
For turfgrass managers, this work addresses an increasingly urgent challenge. Winter injury on golf greens is shaped not only by freezing temperatures, ice cover and meltwater, but also by spring light stress, disease pressure and rapid weather fluctuations. Recent research has shown that when strong light is combined with low temperatures, and particularly after ice encasement, the grass can suffer from photoinhibition and oxidative stress. These stresses weaken the grass’s ability to carry out photosynthesis and makes it less tolerant of freezing night temperatures and other stresses. Sensitive species such as annual bluegrass and creeping bentgrass, commonly used on golf greens, are particularly affected. Similarly, as a part of the WinterTurf project we have been investigating the effect of light intensity during cold acclimation on freezing tolerance in perennial ryegrass in the climate laboratory in Tromsø, Norway (Figure 2). Early results indicated a negative, but not significant, impact of light intensity during cold acclimation on freezing tolerance of the Norwegian cultivar ‘Fagerlin‘. In autumn 2025 when the experiment was repeated, we did not observe this negative impact and found no significant effect of light treatments during cold acclimation on freezing tolerance. Still, as in the first experiment, the leaf colours turned yellow (Figure 3) and purple (Figure 4) in plants during cold acclimation as a response to a higher light intensity, especially in the Norwegian variety ‘Fagerlin’ compared to the U.S. variety ‘Green Planet‘.
In the coming seasons, researchers in Norway, Sweden and the U.S. will examine how excess light damages turfgrass — and how that damage can be prevented. A key ambition of AURORA GREEN is to translate scientific results into practical guidance for golf courses, including improved use of protective covers, better spring reseeding strategies, and stronger decision support for winter preparation. This Scandinavian–U.S. collaboration represents an important step toward healthier turf, faster spring green-up and more sustainable golf course management in northern regions.
