Cover Story
Year in Review
2018 – The Year That Seemingly Will Never End for Turfgrass Managers From the Virginia Tech Turf Team: Mike Goatley Ph.D., Shawn Askew Ph.D., David McCall Ph.D., Jeff Derr Ph.D., Tom Kuhar Ph.D., Jordan Booth
The
VT Turf Team prides itself on finding and providing answers or at least a novel approach to try when it comes to the challenges that Virginia’s turfgrass managers face year in and year out in the transition zone. Unfortunately, this year we had to face the facts -- the challenges were too many in 2018 regardless of location throughout the state or what grass was being managed. The weather since late-December 2017 has been as difficult and frustrating for our industry as any in recent memory. Years like 2018 in the Mid-Atlantic region are not normal. After all, the “normal” temperature and moisture data are just summarized over a few decades to arrive at a “normal” average of abnormal years! Let’s look at how Mother Nature was “signaled for piling on” turfed sites in the mid-Atlantic in 2018. Seasonal stress is not uncommon in the Mid-Atlantic. Virginia lies in the climatic Transition Zone. A 200-mile plus zone between where bermudagrasses are more truly adapted in areas to the South and where cool season grasses are more truly adapted in the cool humid regions to the North. In the transition zone, most turf grasses require more diligent and skilled management to persist. Management highlights practices that attempt to make up for the potential negative impacts of cold winters or short seasons on the warm season grasses and the hot, humid summers impacting the cool season grasses. Colder winters and cooler than normal and/or shortened growing seasons are hard on bermudagrass and other warm season grasses. In warmer than normal summers, the cool season grasses (creeping bentgrass, Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass, tall fescue and the troublesome annual bluegrass) experience significant heat and drought stress. Expert management is needed
every year in the transition zone since grasses we use in fine turf can have different stresses each year. The primary stress factors in 2018 included 1) winter kill and a delayed spring green up (bermudagrass and St. Augustinegrass); and 2) excessive rainfall (all grasses). How was 2018 different? Virginia had weather extremes that were well beyond the norm in 2018. In southeast Virginia, there were six days in January when the minimum temperature was below 20° F based on data from the Norfolk airport, including two days when the low was 10° F. The average low is 32° F. In February, there were 12 days when the high temperature was over 60° F, while the average high is 51° F. In March there were five days when the low temperature was below 32° F. In October there were 11 days with a high over 80° F, while the average high is 71° F. This was quite a roller coaster of temperatures for late winter and early spring, combined with above average temperatures in October. The 2018 Impact on Bermudagrass and St. Augustinegrass: We in Virginia are used to the occasional unpredictable cold winters that result in bermudagrass winterkill every 7 to 15 years or so. This past winter was one of those years for winter kill across much of the mid-Atlantic and Southeast. There was a massive bermudagrass winterkill problem statewide, plus winterkill of St. Augustine in southeast Virginia. Yet summer-like conditions necessary for bermudagrass spring 2018 regrowth and replanting was delayed at least a month. That delayed the unmasking of bermudagrass winter kill and recovery strategies until after the delayed spring greenup. This also shortened the bermudagrass growing season. We came out of winter with weaker and dead areas of turf.
18 | Virginia Turfgrass Journal November/December 2018 www.vaturf.org