Turf grass winter survival. Book of abstracts from international seminar 11-12 November 2014

This seminar presents results of vital interest for golf courses in the Nordic countries regarding turf grass winter survival. About 70% of golf courses in this part of Europe suffer from winter damages every year and that the associated average annual costs per golf course are €35 000-40 000 (STERF, 2014). An enquiry performed by the Norwegian Golf Federation in 2013 showed that golf course managers throughout Scandinavia consider ‘Winter Stress Management’ to be the most important thematic area for STERFs research and development. One of the aims of this seminar is to build a network between golf course managers, turf grass researchers, consultants, agronomists and people from the turf grass industry who have interest in turf grass winter hardiness. This seminar also sums up the results from the research project ‘Turfgrass winter survival in a changing climate’ (2011-2014). The principal objective of this project was to reduce winter injury of grasses for golf courses, recreational areas and pastures through better understanding of dehardening reactions and appropriate management in a wetter and less stable winter climate. The project included experiments in the field and under controlled conditions which were carried out at Bioforsk’s research facilities at Apelsvoll, Landvik and Særheim. The project did also include large-scale experiments with protective winter covers of golf greens at Oulu Golf Club (Finland), Timrå Golf Club (Sweden) and Miklagard Golf Course (Norway) during the three winters 2011-2014.