For this upcoming winter, we will have over 80 environmental sensing nodes deployed on golf greens across the northern hemisphere--stretching from Oregon to Finland. These nodes are collecting data on soil temperature, soil moisture, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and more every 15 minutes all winter long. Data from these nodes will help our team learn more about winter stresses of turfgrass so that we can predict when it happens and find solutions to reduce risk for the turfgrass managers. To date, these nodes have collected over 28 million data points!
Our project benefits from more data, and to get more data we need more nodes! We are seeking donations of $3,000 from individual golf courses, which will allow us to deploy a sensor node on your course in late fall 2025. The node will stay on your course until spring, at which point you will ship it back to us (we cover shipping costs); our team will then run diagnostics on the node, and prepare it for re-installation at your course in late fall 2026. We anticipate re-deploying these sensors for multiple years thereafter.
What are the benefits of making this donation?
- Your course will help solve a longstanding problem for cold-climate golf course superintendents
- You will have access to real-time data from the sensing node on your course.
- We will provide all environmental data for download at the end of the winter to help you become more informed of your course conditions.
- Your course will be able to claim a charitable donation deduction.
How does the node get deployed?
We will ship you the node, along with video instructions, sometime in late October or early November 2025.
How do I participate?
If your course would like to take part in the WinterTurf cooperative golf course donation program, please fill out this short form so that we can confirm your interest and order a sensing node to place at your golf course in fall 2025.