By Kevin Frank, Michigan State University
The typical turfgrass conference season is during the winter months but in Alaska everything is a little different. David Phipps, GCSAA Northwest Regional Representative, talked to me over a year ago about the possibility of speaking about winterkill at the Great Alaskan Turf Conference in July. Of course, I said yes as the opportunity to visit Alaska, speak at the conference, and learn from superintendents about how they manage going into, getting through, and recovering from winter was one I couldn’t pass up.
The Great Alaskan Turf Conference was hosted at Anchorage Golf Course (Figure 1) by golf course superintendent Michael Stern, and general manager Rich Sayers on July 21. Following the conference on July 22, we met with local superintendents and toured Settlers Bay Golf Course, Palmer Golf Course and Moose Run Golf Course. Moose Run Golf Course is a 36-hole facility run by the Air Force just outside the gates of Joint Base Elmendor-Richardson. Some might recognize the base as the site of a recent meeting between our President and the country just across the Bering Strait.
Despite Alaska having only 22 golf courses, from what I observed, the residents are golf crazy, as every facility was packed on the picture-perfect day that we visited. Visiting with the superintendents, all commented that golfers are ever-present during the long summer days and that can be some long days. On the summer solstice, Anchorage experiences about 22 hours of functional daylight. That’s a full day for any golf course. High traffic levels, long days, extreme winters, and the occasional interlopers of moose and brown bears on the course make turf management in Alaska unique.
Winter conditions that can extend from October through April can decimate both annual bluegrass and creeping bentgrass surfaces. Unfortunately, 4+ months of ice cover on putting greens can be common and although some golf courses use cover systems (Figure 2) to protect from ice, it’s not necessarily always easy to vent covers throughout the winter so even this approach isn’t entirely without risk. Whether covering or not, the one thing all superintendents talked about were the challenges of reestablishing winterkill damaged areas once winter broke as the golfers would be ready to play almost immediately. Multiple seedings, fertilization, and higher mowing heights are typical practices to facilitate establishment. Unfortunately, some years it seems that once the greens are fully recovered and back to normal playing conditions, winter is on the horizon once again.