Ice damage has unfortunately become a very common problem in our province in recent years as mild winters and large weather shifts are seeming to become more common for our Saskatchewan winters. Ice can be very difficult to prevent but there are a few practices that can be performed to help decrease/eliminate the damage it causes. Anoxia is what takes place when turfgrasses die from being encased in ice for too long. What happens at this point is that the plant can no longer effectively "breathe" and harmful gases become present causing the plant too die from low to non-existent oxygen levels.
So what practices can be performed to help you reduce the damage that ice causes? The first and most important thing is promoting as healthy of a stand of turf as you possibly can going into winter. This would mean that activities such as adequate fertilizer and irrigation amounts have been maintained throughout the growing season, regular cultural practices (aeration, topdressing, verti-cutting, grooming, etc) have been performed throughout the growing season, and proper cutting heights and quality of cut has been present to name just a few of the many important practices that take place on the golf course during the season. There are some nutritional tools and products available that have helped extend the duration in which a plant can handle ice encasement. Products designed to help mitigate stress on the plant have demonstrated success in university trials against ice encasement. These products generally contain elements such as the plant defense activators, phosphites, extremophiles, humic acids, etc that are all things that we have talked about in the past that all come together to either promote a stronger/healthier plant or a more desirable porous rootzone that will result in better air/gas exchange and water movement. In areas that commonly collect water and form ice, late fall aeration can help to create channels for water to move down below the surface. Simple practices such as taking a cup cutter to the low areas or cutting sod strips in low spots to move water that collects away from the surface can also help. It is worth noting that some of these practices can help to promote faster drying out of the rootzone though so if you are in areas prone to dessication you do have to weigh the risks of ice protection vs. dessication protection. The use of ice shield tarping systems to separate the ice from the plant along with reclamation/geo-textile products and bubble wrap have also proven to be effective in creating air pockets to help the plant breathe with the ice.
When ice does occur a superintendent does have to assess how long is too long for the plant to be under the ice and then if ice removal is viewed to be best how will you remove the ice? Taking turf samples from ice covered areas using a drill with a hole saw bit can be a helpful tool to assess damage by bring the samples indoors to warmer temperatures with lighting to see how much of the plants begin to grow back in more suitable growing conditions. If ice removal is to take place then tools such as aerators, mechanically powered brushes, jackhammers, etc can all be used to remove ice, but there always is the risk of these tools causing further damage.
Next month I will continue with ice damage with some recommendations that will help in the recovery phase when ice damage does occur coming out of winter to help get the playing surfaces back in playing condition as quickly as possible.
Turf Fuel has a winter hardiness program that is a combination of Element 6, Base K26 and MZ-23 or Phos-sil Fuel that has been university proven to help with ice encasement. Element 6 features a full load of Nutrifense which is a combination of protein pre-cursors, defense activators, extremophile extracts and anti-oxidants that provided the best results in the study when it came to plant survival under ice conditions. Our Base K26 was also included in the study and the K source (potassium acetate) also displayed strong results against the untreated control when it came to the amount of plants that recovered after ice encasement.
Some quick details on this product combination can be found below along with the details of the university trial.
