Another poa problem

 If you got a chance to hit some balls on the Fox Meadow range in the last couple of weeks you may have noticed two unsightly pancakes in the middle of the range. They are the target greens for the 100 & 150 yds distances, and they are dead. They were pretty much the purest stands of poa annua grass we had on the course. As mentioned in an earlier post, poa does not like the winter much, and it really does not like ice. These two targets were covered in ice for just over a month and they did not hold up well. Thankfully these were not greens!

                                                           A close up of the carnage...

 Well this is just another illustration of why we are trying to move away from managing poa here at Fox Meadow. Depending on this turf for playing surfaces here in Eastern Canada is getting harder to do. We have experienced a lot more fluctuation in our winter temperatures, making ice development a bigger problem. Where as 20 years ago we would simply have a big snowstorm, nowadays its just not that simple. Snowstorms turn into rain events, and back to snow at the drop of a hat. This all adds up to damage to turf, and poa in particular.

                                                                 not bad for April 26

 So that's why we are pushing bentgrass. As you can see from the above photo, the bent wintered well and is already started to develop it healthy root system for the upcoming season. It's important to encourage roots as much as possible because it provides the turf with a lot more resiliency over the entire summer.