May Greens Report
May Greens Report
Greens Report May
During the majority of May we have seen extreme contrasts in the weather. This month has brought with it very warm conditions to extremely wet conditions. The course has however dried out nicely with just one or two areas still too wet to cut or repair. We are now well into our regular cutting regime, and with the current shortage of staff, we are only just managing to keep on top of the cutting on the main playing areas. The current ground conditions and warm temperatures have caused a major flush in growth on all areas of the course. The fairway mower is out every day to try and keep on top of growth, but this isn’t always possible depending on staff holidays. With all concentration on cutting, we still have a few jobs outstanding such as repairing areas around the course that have stood water for months during the winter, irrigation bursts which have been dug out to fill back in and reinstate. We are also aware of several complaints about bunkers. We do realise that some bunkers require a top up of sand, but we must prioritise cutting when growth is so strong. We have managed to tiller all the bunkers after last week’s rain which has improved them. We do aim to top up bunkers when time allows. During the dry spell at the start of the month the irrigation system was used for the first time this season. Unfortunately, we were unable to irrigate greens 1 and 10 due to bursts in the pipework which have now been repaired. We have also noticed several valves are leaking and valve taps corroded due to their age. The irrigation company we use are due to replace these soon. We also had an issue with the soft start pump which shorted and melted some wiring inside. Luckily Ian Mckaig came and got us back up and running at short notice, so we thank Ian for that.
As you may have noticed the Poa grass on the course started seeding earlier in the month, we are now starting to see the end of the seeding process. This process tends to occur similar times each year depending on conditions. The Poa seedheads gives the greens a whiteish look and can affect ball roll and green speed. There isn’t a great deal that can be done to stop this. Some go down the mechanical route of verticutting to try and reduce seedheads, but we believe this operation can break the seed heads off and spread them further across the green, this is the last thing we want to do when our aim is to reduce the Poa in our greens and introduce more Fescue and Bent grass. Greens have recently been sarel rolled to allow air and moisture into the profile, this also allowed the recent application of Rocastem, Soilmax, T-Thatch and Hydroguard to work down into the profile. Rocastem is the form of liquid aerator we use regularly. Soilmax is a biostimulant we apply to help the grass nutrition uptake and builds the grasses resilience to lower cutting heights through summer. T-Thatch contains thatch eating microbes which breakdown the thatch in the greens and converts it to available nutrients for the grass plant. Hydroguard is a wetting Agent applied to retain moisture within the profile therefore helping combat against the soil becoming hydrophobic. We had planned to verticut greens earlier in the month, but the extreme weather encountered has brought on a little bit of fusarium which is a turf disease. Verticutting is an aggressive operation, so we have decided to delay, to prevent putting any more stress on the greens and let them recover. Greens have also been sprayed with liquid fertiliser, iron and manganese, followed by a granular fertiliser to strengthen up the greens and improve appearance, these products will also help with recovery. All Tees and academy course greens have been sprayed with a wetting agent. This will hopefully help reduce the amount of irrigation needed on tees and reduce the amount of hand watering needed on the academy course greens with regular applications. Because most of the tees and academy greens have been constructed with poor soils, moisture and nutrients tend to leach very quickly from these surfaces and a wetting agent will hopefully improve this. All bunkers on the main course were edged earlier in the month, this task takes two staff about two days in total. We usually try and edge bunkers once a month depending on growing conditions. All tees are divoted once a week when time allows. During the recent day of constant rain, we took the chance to catch up on machinery maintenance. We try to give all mowers a 50-hour service which includes checking all fluid levels, tyre pressures and greasing moving parts. Some of our older machines have been playing up recently and have been out of action which hasn’t been ideal as we find ourselves having to swap our greens and tees units over on the same machine every day which is all added time. Strimming areas on the course has been continuous, with trees being strimmed around along with tee plates, tee banks, ditches, ponds, fences and steps.
We would like to thank Robin Conner and Alan Atkinson for cutting the hedges in the car park, also thanks to Robin for continuing to cut the grass around the trees in the carpark. Thanks to Paul Harris, Richard Baker and Dave Oram for repairing the fence at the rear of the 14th white tee. Finaly a thanks to Chris Megginson for obtaining quotes from drainage companies for future drainage works on the course, and for organising the works on our track down to the sheds.
Thanks
Greens Team
During the majority of May we have seen extreme contrasts in the weather. This month has brought with it very warm conditions to extremely wet conditions. The course has however dried out nicely with just one or two areas still too wet to cut or repair. We are now well into our regular cutting regime, and with the current shortage of staff, we are only just managing to keep on top of the cutting on the main playing areas. The current ground conditions and warm temperatures have caused a major flush in growth on all areas of the course. The fairway mower is out every day to try and keep on top of growth, but this isn’t always possible depending on staff holidays. With all concentration on cutting, we still have a few jobs outstanding such as repairing areas around the course that have stood water for months during the winter, irrigation bursts which have been dug out to fill back in and reinstate. We are also aware of several complaints about bunkers. We do realise that some bunkers require a top up of sand, but we must prioritise cutting when growth is so strong. We have managed to tiller all the bunkers after last week’s rain which has improved them. We do aim to top up bunkers when time allows. During the dry spell at the start of the month the irrigation system was used for the first time this season. Unfortunately, we were unable to irrigate greens 1 and 10 due to bursts in the pipework which have now been repaired. We have also noticed several valves are leaking and valve taps corroded due to their age. The irrigation company we use are due to replace these soon. We also had an issue with the soft start pump which shorted and melted some wiring inside. Luckily Ian Mckaig came and got us back up and running at short notice, so we thank Ian for that.
As you may have noticed the Poa grass on the course started seeding earlier in the month, we are now starting to see the end of the seeding process. This process tends to occur similar times each year depending on conditions. The Poa seedheads gives the greens a whiteish look and can affect ball roll and green speed. There isn’t a great deal that can be done to stop this. Some go down the mechanical route of verticutting to try and reduce seedheads, but we believe this operation can break the seed heads off and spread them further across the green, this is the last thing we want to do when our aim is to reduce the Poa in our greens and introduce more Fescue and Bent grass. Greens have recently been sarel rolled to allow air and moisture into the profile, this also allowed the recent application of Rocastem, Soilmax, T-Thatch and Hydroguard to work down into the profile. Rocastem is the form of liquid aerator we use regularly. Soilmax is a biostimulant we apply to help the grass nutrition uptake and builds the grasses resilience to lower cutting heights through summer. T-Thatch contains thatch eating microbes which breakdown the thatch in the greens and converts it to available nutrients for the grass plant. Hydroguard is a wetting Agent applied to retain moisture within the profile therefore helping combat against the soil becoming hydrophobic. We had planned to verticut greens earlier in the month, but the extreme weather encountered has brought on a little bit of fusarium which is a turf disease. Verticutting is an aggressive operation, so we have decided to delay, to prevent putting any more stress on the greens and let them recover. Greens have also been sprayed with liquid fertiliser, iron and manganese, followed by a granular fertiliser to strengthen up the greens and improve appearance, these products will also help with recovery. All Tees and academy course greens have been sprayed with a wetting agent. This will hopefully help reduce the amount of irrigation needed on tees and reduce the amount of hand watering needed on the academy course greens with regular applications. Because most of the tees and academy greens have been constructed with poor soils, moisture and nutrients tend to leach very quickly from these surfaces and a wetting agent will hopefully improve this. All bunkers on the main course were edged earlier in the month, this task takes two staff about two days in total. We usually try and edge bunkers once a month depending on growing conditions. All tees are divoted once a week when time allows. During the recent day of constant rain, we took the chance to catch up on machinery maintenance. We try to give all mowers a 50-hour service which includes checking all fluid levels, tyre pressures and greasing moving parts. Some of our older machines have been playing up recently and have been out of action which hasn’t been ideal as we find ourselves having to swap our greens and tees units over on the same machine every day which is all added time. Strimming areas on the course has been continuous, with trees being strimmed around along with tee plates, tee banks, ditches, ponds, fences and steps.
We would like to thank Robin Conner and Alan Atkinson for cutting the hedges in the car park, also thanks to Robin for continuing to cut the grass around the trees in the carpark. Thanks to Paul Harris, Richard Baker and Dave Oram for repairing the fence at the rear of the 14th white tee. Finaly a thanks to Chris Megginson for obtaining quotes from drainage companies for future drainage works on the course, and for organising the works on our track down to the sheds.
Thanks
Greens Team