UMN Turf Research
What’s Next for WinterTurf
By: Eric Watkins Professor, Department of Horticultural Science University of Minnesota
The WinterTurf project aims to courses superintendents find solutions to the problem throughout the cold climates of of winter stress damage of the world assist by collecting turfgrasses. The project, funded data and installing environmental by the United States Department sensing nodes on their courses. of Agriculture, is well into its third To date, scores of golf course year. As I write this, the winter superintendents throughout the of 2023-2024 looks quite meek, world (Figure 1) have given their and thankfully very little winter time to aid our project--thank damage is likely in Minnesota. you to all who have chipped in! Nevertheless, we can expect that future winters will bring So where are we with the damage, and it is important to be WinterTurf project? What diligent in looking for solutions have we learned? What do to the types of injury that are we hope to discover? most common, especially on high value areas like golf greens. Discovering how plants experience winter The success of the WinterTurf project hinges on having golf Right now, data streams 42