All I want for Christmas... is sunshine!

Today is December 21... and all southern golf course superintendents are aware of the importance of this day. It means the winter solstice has arrived! To be exact, it will arrive at 10:27 p.m tonight. This is a key date for those of us living in the northern hemisphere because it marks the shortest day of the year. 

The winter solstice is the day when the sun rises and sets to our south at the lowest angle. Because the earth orbits around the sun on a tilted axis, between September and March the entire northern hemisphere gets less exposure to sunlight. It’s not surprising that these months coincide with the seasonal influx of residents to Southwest Florida, and golf play is at its peak!

Sunrise on Hole 10, Winter 2023

So why is this important to a golf course superintendent? In basic terms, for turfgrass to thrive it needs sunlight, water, air and nutrients. Of these needs, the one that is most out of our control is sunlight!

Since the duration and intensity of the sun's rays is out of our control, it is extremely important to have plant health peaking on this day and do everything in our control to maintain plant health for the next 60 days or so. By March, the nighttime temperatures have increased and the days are long enough that sunlight essentially becomes a non-factor.

This year sunlight is especially important because we are under the influence of a strong El Niño weather pattern. This means a cooler and wetter than normal winter in Southwest Florida. While we appreciate  rainfall in the dry season, a potential negative is the increased cloud cover. This has been evident over the last few weeks, and the forecast for the foreseeable future is for the cloudy days to continue. Since we are in our peak golf season, and the weather has been less than conducive for warm season turfgrass growth, we are managing the turf significantly different than most years. The mowing height on greens has been increased slightly and we have even skipped mowing greens, opting for a “roll only” several days a week. In the winter it's a normal practice at Olde Florida to be on a "preventative" fungicide program, but this year the window on these applications have been tightened. 

We are also mowing fairways less frequently to maintain as much leaf tissue as possible. Leaf tissue is essential for effective photosynthesis and plant growth. Finally, with the lack of turfgrass growth this time of year (even more so this year) traffic and the resulting wear patterns (weakening turf) will remain a concern for us.  

Fortunately, on this winter solstice we have complete turfgrass cover on all playing surfaces at Olde Florida, but for this golf course superintendent, all I want for Christmas is sunshine!