The three major types of winter turf injury are direct low temperature stress, winter desiccation, and low temperature fungi. Frozen conditions in the absence of snow cover can cause a slow but constant lost of moisture. This type of winter injury known as desiccation is especially damaging during sunny and windy conditions. It is known that artificial barriers between the grass and the environment can positively decrease the physiological damage. Protective covers or tarps are often placed over the turf just prior to ground freeze and are not removed in the spring until the surface thaws. For most winter conditions turf covers speed spring green-up and reduce winter injury.

An alternative to using plastic or any other kind of covers in turfgrass is the use of anti-desiccants. These substances decrease the rate at which plant tissue would lose water.

The objective of this study was to determine the effect that anti-desiccants applied before winter would have on the quality of turfgrass at springtime.

The study was initiated November 15, 2001 at the Horticulture Research Station on a USGA sand based putting green containing a mature stand of ‘Penncross’ creeping bentgrass. The trial had eight treatments (Table 1) and 3 replications. Each treatment was applied using a CO₂ sprayer on an area of 5 x 5 ft². The Evergreen Turf Cover was placed on the same day that anti-desiccant treatments were applied.

Table 1. Description of products and application rates.

No other practice or treatment was applied to the trial. A foot of snow was on top of the trial for about 90 days. The first rating of the trial was done the 26 of March, and every ten days after that, for a total of 4 ratings. Turf color was visually evaluated using a scale from 1-10, where 1 is white-brown color and 10 dark green.

The winter of 2000 – 2001 produced record snow cover with just over 90 days of snow cover between December and March. The extensive snow cover eliminated any chance of injury from winter desiccation. Grey Snow Mold was generally extensive throughout the state, but there was only minimal injury on this particular bentgrass research site.

Table 1 shows the summary of four evaluation dates in the spring. Turf color was used to evaluate the amount of winter injury as well as the rate of spring green-up. Normal spring green-up began during the first week of April. The untreated control and the Evergreen cover were used for comparison with the anti-desiccant materials. The Evergreen cover provided better turf color than the non-treated control. Lower turf color ratings for the anti-desiccant materials seemed to be associated with a lighter tan color of the turfgrass blades. There was no rate effect among the GLAD treatments.

Table 2. Turf quality for various anti-desiccant treatments. Higher values represent less winter injury.

While there were no significant differences between the control and any of the anti-desiccant materials, there appeared to be a non-statistical trend. This trend indicated that the anti-desiccant materials resulted in lower turf color ratings than the non-treated control. By 4 May all of the grass treated with anti-desiccants had recovered to a level equal to the non-treated control and the trend ceased to exist.

The anti-desiccant materials used in this trial did not improve the spring performance of putting green turf following the winter. The winter of 2000-2001 did not produce winter desiccation conditions.