Secondary cultural practices

Today was a busy day on the greens and aprons.

The process was as follows:

1. Uni-directional spike
2. Bi-directional scarification  with grass-boxes fitted (1 man to follow with a buggy and trailer and a back-pack blower to clear large clumps of thatch or bits of grass)
3. Cutting of the greens with a triplex mower
4. Top dressing
5. Embedding the topsoil with a steel mat towed behind a buggy

Drainage ditches

These are the drainage ditches on our course. I firmly believe that there is a way to make them more animal frienidly.  Arguably these ditches could be teeming with birds, amphibians and insects after incorporating some plants and also by adding areas where fauna can enter or exit safely. 

Bunkers - hazard to more than just golfers

I found this frog struggling to get out of a bunker and I believe that there was no exit route that he would have been able to get out with.

Fertilizing tee-boxes

This slow release fertiliser was applied with the use of a walk-behind centrifugal fertiliser spreader

Fertilizing greens

These fertilisers are mixed together in the tank and sprayed as one application with a boom sprayer

Drainage on the course

These pictures show clearly how a drainage pipe has been directed straight into a bunker.

Arguably, this is not standard practice because the pictures show the result.

A possible explanation could be that the bunker was added to the course after the drainage had already been installed.

Black spots on the greens

Squirrel

A brave baby squirrel stands his ground, while his sibling's scurried to the tree for safety

Insufficient bunker drainage

Yesterday it rained, both during the day and in the evening. 

Pictured here is one of the flooded bunkers. I also included a picture of the ducks, because in another flooded bunker a couple of them were swimming happily. Unfortunately I was unable to get a picture before they flew off.

This made me think about the benefits of adding a pond to the course.  Currently the course only has a network of drainage canal's which arguably are not of much use for many animals. [More info required]

Fairy ring on the greens

Silver moss on the greens

further details on silver moss

Hollow-tine tee boxes

This week we went about hollow-tining the tee boxes. 
The cores are removed and then the area is over-seeded with custom mixture of three varieties of Lolium perenne.
Thereafter the area is top dressed with a rootzone mixture, ensuring thst all visible holes are filled.

It can be argued that once the top dressing procedure is done, the area should receive a light watering, just to assist the dressing and seeds to bed into place. In this case, this watering-in was not done.

Black spots on the greens

These pictures show what, at first glance, looks like some kind of disease. 
After speaking with the deputy-head Greenkeeper about this, advice was hiven thst these marks ae the result of cutting the turf while there was frost on them. On the close-up picture the lamina look as if they are bruised.

Bunker run and rolling the greens

On 16-04-2014, the greens staff went around the course and did the following:
weeded all the bunkers 
used a hover-mower to trim the turf on the slopes where the ride-on mowers cannot reach
Trimmed the turf ob the edges of the bunkers with a strimmer
Blew all the turf clippings out of the bunkers

Spraying wetting agents onto aprons and greens

Bee hives to assist bee colonies.

Great idea for our golf course.


Plan Bee creates a buzz - Eco-innovation Action Plan: Plan Bee creates a buzz - Eco-innovation Action Plan

Divots, mowing and blowing

Today the assistant greenkeepers were split into various teams to do the following:
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Team 1.  (4 men)
Fill fairway divots with a seed mix, with a bit of root-zone soil mix

Team 2. (3 men)
Mow the fairways in diagonal lines.
It is worth noting here that since the start of spring until now, the fairways have been cut along their length and following their contours. The result is that one side of the fairway is light and the other dark, so only two directions of cut. This method of mowing requires less turning and is a bit better for turf-wear in the wet conditions the course has been in lately.

Team 3. (2 men)
Remove the dew from the greens with a dew broom and tidy the bunkers where necessary

Team 4. (1 man)
Mow the rough areas with a rotary mower

-second half of the day-


Team 3 split

1 man to blow the clippings from the mown fairways
1 man to join Team 4. and assist with fairway-divot repair

Team 1.  (5 men)
Fill fairway divots with a seed mix, with a bit of root-zone soil mix

Team 4. (1 man)
Mow the rough areas with a rotary mower

-----------------

Note: According to the author's observations, the timing of some of these tasks could have been co-ordinated in a way that would achieve a better long-term result. This conclusion is made due to the following points

• Some fairways were mown after the divots had been repaired
• Most of the fairways were blown with a tractor-mounted blower after the divots had been repaired

It can be said that both the points above would result in the removal of some of the soil-seed mixture that has been used to fill divot holes. Perhaps a better option would be to blow the fairways only once they are mown and only then repair the divots.


The following structure is proposed:


-----------------

Team 1 & 3 combined (6 men)
Remove the dew from the greens with a dew broom and tidy the bunkers where necessary

Team 2. (3 men)
Mow the fairways in diagonal lines.
Team 4. (1 man)
Mow the rough areas with a rotary mower

-second quarter of the day-
1 man from team 1 & 3 to man the tractor-mounted blower and start cleaning the the clippings from the fairways

-second half of the day-
Team 1 & 3 carry on as is

-----------------

It is possible that it was not foreseen that there would be so many clippings left on the fairway, even with the grass-boxes on. Looks like the previous work done on the fairways has really increased the growth-rate of the turf. Job well done then.

Fusarium treatment

Today the greens were sprayed with a combination contact-systemic fungicide (details TBC)

There are signs of Fusarium on most of the greens, and even though the weather conditions may stop the Fusarium (by drying out), the greenkeeper in charge has decided to go ahead with a somewhat preventative treatment. The course is looking really good and he does not want to compromise the great improvement since the end of the winter months

The greens were all brushed first, to lift the leaf blades. Then they were mown and only thne was spraying done.

Great sunny weather for uptake of the product by the turf plants. The stomata were all most probably wide open for most of the day.

Application of fertilizer to fairways and semi-rough

Application on 08-04-2014

Soluble Iron (product details)
Total Iron (Fe) - 20%
Total Sulphur (SO³) - 28.8% (11.54% S)

A powder that is first diluted in warm water before adding to the spraying tank. According to the operator's experience, if this practice is not done with this product, the nozzles are easily blocked by undiluted particles.

The directions on the packaging, also recommend the use of warm water. The packing further explains that the addition of iron sulphate heptahydrate removes energy from the water as it dissolves, and lowers the temperature.

Fertilizer (SOLUFEED Hi-K 13-0-45)
A water-soluble powder. The packaging states that the "sulphur-free formulation makes it ideally suited for use in anaerobic rootzone situations,with nitrate nitrogen for good low temperature release"

Temporary mowing height on the greens

Having top-dressed the greens 5 days ago, we have been cutting them with the tee-box walk-behind mowers. These still picked up a fair bit of the top-dressing, but using these mowers means that the greens-mowers are kept in the best possible condition, and the turf gets a bit of a higher cut.

This also benefits the turf, reason being: the more leaf area the plant has, the less the turf plant will be stressed and the more it will be able to photosynthesise and grow.

"Silicone spray" over greens and aprons

03-04-2014

Further details will be added ASAP

Green dye was added to the mixture for the boom-sprayer operator to see where he has already sprayed.

Fertilising the fairways

Following the completion of the hollow-tine procedure that took place on the fairways, today we applied a controlled-release fertiliser to all the fairways.

The fertiliser we used is Multigreen 15-0-22+Mg0. The information on the pack says that the fertiliser is released only once the optimum temperature is reached. In this case, being based on the requirements of the UK, the "activating" temperature is 20 degrees Celsius. The product information further states the temperature is the sole activator for this fertilizer ad it should last between 4 - 6 months. 

Further information about this fertiliser can be found on page 4 and 5 of the brochure found in the following link: Multigreen Product Information Brochure

More spring preparation

Today was a fairly busy day on the course.

Each green and apron was treated with the following procedure

1. Verti-cut (with the grass-catching boxes fitted)
2. Top-dress
3. Chain rake, to incorporate the top-dressing
4. Mow with the triplex cylinder mower (without the grass-catching boxes fitted)

The reason the greens were not mown with the boxes fitted,was because the greens turf in question was only fertilised six days ago, so the greenkeeper in charge did no want to lose any of this to the grass boxes.

It is also sometimes acceptable, and even recommended to leave clippings after mowing, as long as they do not interfere with play. (*)

The last two of the eighteen fairways were also tended to with the following annual practices

1. Hollow-tine
2. Chain rake (twice) to incorporate the soil of the cores. (The deputy head-greenkeeper informed the author that the removal of these cores, without first removing the soil from them, would lead to the diminishing of the top-soil layer, and in this case, the turf would then be sitting directly on top of the clay base. Clay, for various reasons is not a great growing medium for a health turf-grass plant)
3. Blow all the remains of the cores to one side of the fairway
4. Vacuum the cores and place on a compost heap, if available