Data Collection

Be a part of the WinterTurf project!

Are you a golf superintendent who has been affected by winter stress injury? We are seeking assistance from golf course superintendents on a research project (WinterTurf) focused on understanding winter stresses of turfgrass so that we can develop easy-to-implement solutions for turfgrass managers in cold climates. Our objectives include monitoring conditions under ice and snow cover, developing best management practices to prevent and recover from winter injury, breeding more winter hardy turfgrass species, and exploring alternative snow mold control strategies.

For this to be successful, we need to enlist the help of hundreds of golf courses located in cold climates throughout the world. You will collect data on your golf green(s), and then we will take data you collect, along with other data you can provide (fall management practices, previous winter damage, etc.) and combine it with weather data, satellite imagery, and other data that may come available; the data will be analyzed to detect patterns that inform us about winter stresses of turf. Some of you helped us in previous seasons and the procedure will be similar.

We are asking you to volunteer to collect data on at least one golf green on your course during the upcoming winter of 2023-2024. If you volunteered last year, we'd love to have you participate again. We have developed a simple, easy-to-use web application for data entry that works on both mobile devices and desktop computers. We hope this will be a very non-burdensome process. We will ask you:

  • To take some pictures of the green so we can see what the green looks like going into winter
  • To share any management information you are willing to provide (fall fertility, etc.)
  • To provide any recent soil test results
  • To measure snow depth at 4 locations on the green each week and take other notes related to the presence of water and/or ice 
  • To take more pictures of the green after winter so that we can quantify winter damage 

For some locations, we’ll be able to install sensor nodes to monitor winter conditions in the soil and on the surface of the green (temperature, light, oxygen, moisture, etc.). We won’t be able to put sensors on all golf courses, but we will work to do as many as possible. We also have a program where you can donate a sensor to participate in this objective. 

If you are willing to participate in our project, please:

Complete this short survey 

One note: the survey functions best in Chrome or Firefox browsers; it appears that Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge don't work as well. If you have problems, please contact Kristine Moncada at [email protected] for help. 

Thank you for considering to be part of our project!  We will be contacting those of you who sign up with further the next steps soon. Please contact Kristine Moncada at [email protected] if you have questions.

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