Mark Hunt’s Weather Assessment
4th March – 12th March 2010
We are currently kicking and dragging ourselves out of winter and, on my travels last week I went from 1.5°C and sleet in Kent on the Tuesday to 9.5°C and blue sky in Berkshire on the Wednesday and then down to 3°C and a biting cold north east wind in Co. Cork and Co. Waterford for the end of the week. Still, we hit 10°C coming into March in the south of England, so my prediction of double figures going into March was accurate for some parts of the UK.
In the south of the country, the snowfall and then heavy rain falling on saturated ground made for some very wet golf courses last week with most only just opening up for the weekend. Unusually, Scotland has been dry but, of course, bitterly cold with prolonged snow and ice cover in some areas. Either way, it's been a long, hard winter with many days of course closures and mentally I think it has challenged even the most motivated person to stay that way.
Now we're tippy-toeing into March and thoughts will be turning to promoting spring growth and / or gaining recovery from aeration - if you've been able to get to the greens that is - what's in store for the next 10 days?
Well, high pressure looks to be taking charge come the end of the week, with little rain forecast for Ireland, Scotland, Wales or England, although a weak wet front will move through on Saturday. Winds will be light to moderate and initially from the north, then east, but come mid week they should swing round to the south. In Ireland, winds will be extremely light and, if and when cloud cover disperses, it should give some cracking days as it will in the U.K.
For most places we will see varying temperatures entirely dependent on cloud cover. Where it breaks, I expect to get up to high single figures, with plenty of sunshine, but of course with no cloud cover, we'll have night frosts. When the cloud cover remains, the daytime temperatures will be lower, but frosts may be avoided or there may be air frosts at worst. Either way it should be dry and that, at least, ticks one of the boxes on the wish list. This should allow some of the first cuts of the year for fairways and other outfield areas. It's amazing how golf courses morph into spring after a winter and, for me, the smell of freshly cut grass and the sight of wonky stripes yesterday as I gave my lawn it's first cut since November was uplifting.
Looking a bit further ahead, we may have a low pressure coming in at the end of next week bringing windier, wet weather to Ireland and the U.K. However, these Atlantic low systems have been very unreliable due to a reluctant jet stream, so time will tell.
Agronomically, we have already started to see the signs that both Poa and Bentgrass are beginning to awaken from a deeper than usual winter slumber with the telltale purpling distributed across greens according to their plant species composition. Every year I comment on this at the start of spring because, effectively, the plant is starting to photosynthesise in the day and then shutting down at night causing sugar accumulation in the foliage. These sugars bind to anthocyanin, the purple / red pigment notable for imparting the beautiful to behold autumn colours to leaves and so this pigmentation, rather than the more usual green of chlorophyll, imparts colour to the leaf. If you look closely it is usually only present on the upper, more exposed side of the leaf and often greens, which are the first to come into morning sun, are the ones that show this phenomenon the soonest.
 Why Putting Greens Appear Red or Purple in Winter and Spring
Disease-wise, most of the Fusarium and Snow Mold scars are well under control and starting to recover slowly, but there is a good bit of Red Thread kicking around off green, particularly on the Fescue in tees, collars and greens complexes due to the dormancy of this grass species.
Nutrition-wise, I'd be using light rate foliars in low water volumes to take advantage of any rise in air temperatures for this week and next and, if the low pressure pattern looks to hold true, I'd be getting down a granular fertiliser on the run up to next weekend to take advantage of the moisture.
I'll try to put together another report closer to the time to confirm this weather pattern.
Mark Hunt
Technical Director
Headland Amenity Ltd
|
