November 2019 Pitch Diaries

November is late Autumn in the northern hemisphere and the time when our annual voyage around the sun determines that the shortening of the day length really starts to have noticeable impact.

Early morning at Garforth Golf Club, Leeds

To illustrate this, November 1st graces us with a sunrise of 06:53 and a sunset of 16:34 with a day length of 9 hours 40 minutes. On the final day of the month, those numbers have altered to 07:41 sunrise, 15:55 sunset and a day length of 8 hours 13 minutes. So it is then that, over the course of the next few weeks, we will lose 1 hour and 27 minutes of day length. The consequences of this march towards winter for turf grass surfaces are:

• less available sunlight for photosynthesis
• less available warmth to promote growth
• less time for wet leaf blades to dry out during the day

In this month's diaries we look at how all of these environmental factors drive environmental conditions away from favouring the grass plant and towards undesirable factors.
Click here to view

Don't forget, you can also use our Pitchcare Forum, where members can ask for and offer advice on the whole range of sports turf surfaces issues.