By Paige Boyle
This article was originally published on the WinterTurf project blog.
As we enter the new year, we wanted to take a look back at last season’s WinterTurf accomplishments, and give some updates on the year ahead.
What was accomplished over the 2023-2024 season?
Our superintendent collaborators installed sensor nodes to date across the northern U.S., Canada, and Europe, our largest fleet to date. Field and lab studies were conducted to learn more about how ice encasement, cold acclimation, freeze tolerance, light intensity, and fall management impact winterkill. We tested the efficacy of non-traditional snow mold control products and evaluated post-winterkill spring establishment of creeping bentgrass and annual bluegrass. Our group also published our first peer-reviewed WinterTurf manuscript, Influence of controlled condition ice encasement of creeping bentgrass and annual bluegrass on plant recovery, gas evolution, and metabolites.
Snow mold research efforts have been extensive. Members of our team are working on new predictive models for snow mold, and also analyzing isolates of Microdochium nivale to determine how much fungicide resistance is present. Finally, plant breeders are working to identify creeping bentgrass germplasm with snow mold resistance.
Work on selecting creeping bentgrasses for better performance under winter wear continued for another year, and we are hopeful that new cultivars can be developed that will perform well under these conditions.
Looking forward to the 2024-2025 season
This winter, we have sensors deployed on golf courses throughout the world. Sensor information, paired with survey data from over 120 superintendents (Figure 1), unmanned aerial vehicle data, satellite remote sensing data, and ancillary data, will continue to guide ongoing envirotyping work.
Environmental and plant performance data will be analyzed alongside survival data from the field to identify promising winter hardy germplasm, with a focus on perennial ryegrass. Metabolomic analysis of perennial ryegrass growing under fall acclimation conditions will be completed and results will be used to identify a subset of plants for further genetic study so that we can better select for winter stress tolerant plant material in breeding programs.
Many exciting things ahead for the 2024-2025 WinterTurf season! Thank you to all our collaborators and to the superintendents who are collecting data on their courses for this winter season. With your help we are making progress toward our goal of reducing the harmful effects of winter stresses on golf courses.
This project is supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Specialty Crop Research Initiative under award number 2021-51181-35861.