For the last three years, a team of researchers from across the U.S. and northern Europe have been working collaboratively to identify solutions to winter stress damage. Many of you are golf course superintendents who helped collect data as part of this WinterTurf Project; we truly appreciate all the assistance you have provided. Now we are starting our efforts to sign up past and new participants for another winter of data collection that will start later this year after the current golfing season.
Sign up to help collect data or keep reading to learn more.
Goals of the project
Our objectives for this WinterTurf research project include developing best management practices to prevent and recover from winter injury, breeding more winter hardy turfgrass species, and exploring alternative snow mold control strategies, all in an effort to develop easy-to-implement solutions for turfgrass managers in cold climates. As part of our plan to find solutions, we need to collect data at as many sites as possible to capture all the most likely factors that are involved in winter injury.
What are we asking you to do?
We are asking you to monitor 1-3 greens on your golf course throughout the winter. This will include taking soil samples (we will pay for analyses), some photos, and notes about the green going into winter, then measuring snow depth on the green and making some general observations regularly throughout the winter, and finally doing a final assessment after winter.
Why participate again?
We hope those of you who did it in the past will consider continuing another year. The data collection process will be similar to last year with a few improvements based on your suggestions. Past volunteers like you are particularly important to keep in our research study so we can see what happens at the same site over different years with different weather conditions.
Why participate for the first time?
We also hope to recruit new golf courses because the amount of data needed is substantial for our project to be successful. If you haven’t joined, please consider participating this year. As one of the superintendents commented, “I have learned from other people's participation in other projects, so when I was able to increase my knowledge and that of others through WinterTurf, I felt that I needed to pay it forward.”
We would appreciate any help you can provide to get the word out by forwarding this message to colleagues or promoting our #WinterTurf tweets through social media.
How to sign up
Sign up to help collect data and we will email you with further instructions when data collection starts.
If you would like more information, visit our Be a part of the WinterTurf project! webpage. Please contact Paige Boyle at [email protected] if you have questions.