GREENKEEPER BLOG
GreenKeeper Q: A New Way to Measure Putting Green Performance
While GreenKeeper Q looks fun to use—and it is—inside its clear shell is a robotic measurement platform that represents a major departure in putting green performance measurement. For decades, golf course superintendents have largely measured greens performance by...
What Happens to Putting Green Growth When the Weather Changes Fast?
In the last article in this series, I argued that a thermometer is often a better biological clock than a calendar. Growing degree days help explain why 14 calendar days in July can represent a very different amount of biological time than 14 days in November. That...
Fall Wetting Agent Timing Matters for Winter Preparation
Fall weather can make wetting agent scheduling deceptively difficult. As air temperatures cool—especially nighttime temperatures—growing degree days accumulate more slowly and microbial degradation of wetting agents slows. That means an application that may have...
How Much Can Surface Organic Matter Change in a Year?
Scheduling cultivation and topdressing is always a tricky and sometimes controversal task. These practices are disruptive to players, costly, and tough on turf equipment. How much cultivation is really required? What's the right amount of sand topdressing for a...
A Thermometer Is a Better Clock Than a Calendar
In the first article of the GreenKeeper Growth Series, we used nearly 500,000 clipping-volume measurements to examine how much putting greens actually grow. One of the clearest environmental signals associated with that growth was temperature. This week, we are taking...
A Very Strong El Niño Is Building. What Should Turf Managers Expect?
El Niño is strengthening quickly, and the months ahead could bring unusual weather patterns around the world. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association now gives greater than a 90% chance that the 2026–27 El Niño becomes very strong during the Northern...