Sunshine and Warm Weather Continue

Warm weather and a lot of sunshine have continued to grace us here in Kansas City with their presence over the last couple of days. The cool season grasses (bentgrass, fescue, and bluegrass) have taken off and are growing at a very fast pace. Zoysia grass in our tees and fairways is also starting to get it's feet under itself and is starting to grow more and more every day. We are still watching a few of our North facing slopes very closely in our fairways that are in shaded areas and that sit in low areas. These areas are a bit behind everything else due to the lack of sunlight from the shade which allowed the the snow and ice to sit on them for several days and also has caused soil temperatures in these areas to be a lot lower then the rest of the fairways that aren't shaded. I measured the soil temperatures again this morning and in the blonder areas of the zoysia the temperatures are still only reading just above 62 degrees which is about 5-7 degrees warmer then last week, but we still need them to continue to warm up. Zoysia doesn't really start to get growing until soil temperatures reach the 65-70 degree mark. We are going to continue to give these areas some more time to allow the the soils to warm up and allow the turf to fully wake up before we decide to do any sod work. If they will wake up on their own it will be a lot better to let them do that instead of having to manage newly sodded areas. However I am replacing some zoysia on #16 today as this area was extremely thin and was not showing any signs of life. Most of the areas we are replacing are areas where there is a high concentration of cart traffic during the winter at the exit points and are areas where water, ice. and snow set under shade for a long time. Also this week we did our first venting of the greens with our spiker. This practice helps us continue to get oxygen into the root system along with helping to keep the profile open which will allow water to move down to the roots. Spiking is very beneficial and doesn't disrupt the playing surface at all. Here are some pictures of the zoysia peeking through in some dormant areas on a North face and what the greens looked like after we spiked them. Have a great week!