Over the last few weeks it has been noted that disease pressure has been at one of its highest levels throughout this growing year. The week leading to and the bank holiday weekend in August was the point where a lot of diseases have raised there damaging head, anthracnose was the first disease to show its presence as mentioned earlier in this blog, now after the aeration work carried out on 19-27 greens take all patch is present on 2-3 of the greens on this 9. I feel this has been increased due to the high use of the irrigation system this year, the water we use is fed from the River Derwent which is alkali, hard water. Take all is a disease we have always been battling with at Malton and Norton Golf club due to the underlying chalk and the hard water used to irrigate the course. Take all is a disease that infects the roots of bent grasses in alkali conditions when the soil temperature is around 12-18 degrees C killing patches of grass up to 1m in diameter. Greens 19, 21 and 23 have patches around 30cm in diameter.
Over the next few days we are applying a granular fertiliser to greens 1-18, this is a conventional release fertiliser applying 12kg N and 24kg K to harden the plant, provide recovery going into the cooler month of October and help prevent further disease attack.
As the nights get cooler growth has slowed, but with rain forecast on Friday this might pick up once again.
Collection of the long grass continues, around 10 tonnes collected so far.
