Glen Eagle Maintenance (10/18/24)

I thought this was funny but all kidding aside, the drop in temperatures has been such a nice change after the long, hot, wet summer we experienced this year. 

The golf course is starting to rebound from the salt burn that occurred during Hurricane Milton and it’s looking pretty good everything considered.

 

We were extremely lucky and didn’t have any major damage from Hurricane Milton. As I mentioned earlier, we did have one unexpected side effect - salt burn. We have seen it on the turf and many of our trees and landscape plants. 

We don’t see this type of salt burn with every storm because in most storms, rain accompanies or follows the storm and flushes the salt off the leaves and out of the soil. Milton was unique in that the rain came before it and the storm itself was mostly wind.

For the most part the salt burn is temporary damage where the salt desiccates the leaf tissue. However, salt has negative impacts on the soil, and turf. In a normal year, salt from irrigation water builds up in the soil and is taken up by the turf during the dry season. Every year, Superintendents wait on the first big rain of the summer to flush the salts, cleaning the soil and allowing other nutrients to be taken up by the plant. With the additional salt accumulation from Milton, and the rainy season over, we could have saltier soils and therefore more plant uptake over the dry season. We will hope for periodic flushing (1”+) rains to help dilute the salts over the upcoming dry season. Only time will tell how this additional salt will affect our turf. 

Most of damaged leaves will fall off, some will have to be trimmed off and in the turf removal of the damaged leaf tips will happen as we mow and as new growth is regenerated. It’s also important to note that the plants are not dead, just the leaves. So for the next few weeks, we will experience somewhat of a Northern Fall where we have piles of leaves to rake, blow and remove.

Here are some pictures of the salt burn. You can see the worst burn is where the water pooled. What I find really interesting is the burn is worse on the East sides, which makes sense due to the winds coming out of  the West.

Salt, translocated to the tips of the leaves and causes the tip to “burn” or turn yellow/brown.

Mowing off the tip burn…

Here are a few pictures I thought were particularly interesting…

The water was high in the lake on 12 prior to Milton so when the salt blew it was protected and didn’t burn. We ended up with a nice green strip around every lake.

The West side of 17 green/collar (protected side)

East side of 17 green/collar (exposed side)

Here is an example of the burn on one of the plants at the clubhouse…

West side

East side (you can see the burn on top too)

One of the reasons I like my work is observing what Mother Nature serves up. Every storm, every situation is different and no day is ever the same.

I look forward to seeing everyone on the course, and as always, if you have any questions, flag me down or shoot me an email. I always enjoy talking turf!