Turning dry?

Its been a busy couple of weeks, grass is growing and temperatures are rising. At this time of year this isn't a great combination. Dry spring weather often results in little recovery from any winter wear. Considering this winter was mild and fairly dry, growth wasn't too bad, as I have mentioned before in this blog the course was open throughout winter (with the exception of 3 days) so the turf took a lot of wear. A normal winter, cold and minimal growth can result in more closures, but we can also see much more wear and damage across the course. Cold weather means no recovery from that wear. Should we get a cold winter followed by a cold spring we can see very patchy growth. For April the course overall is in good shape. Fertiliser applications are taking effect, the longer cut grass showing more signs of spring growth than such areas like the greens. There are a couple of reasons for this, the length of grass has a direct result on soil temperatures. The grass through winter acts as insulation, the more grass the higher the soil temperature. We are only talking small amounts but it does make the difference. The other fact relating to grass length is the ability to withhold moisture. The higher cut grass creates more shade and again protects the soil from losing moisture through wind and heat. This is especially noticeable now we have had dry weather for over a week, the greens are showing signs of drying out, however the semi rough keeps on growing, when checking, the soil is still very moist even near the surface.

On the course we have groomed all the greens and applied lawn sand to greens 19-27. You will have noticed if played recently the greens have gone black.

 This is due to the iron content, iron sulphate is the best control for moss, in my opinion. The lawn sand comes as a powder and is extremely difficult to apply evenly. The high iron content dries the moss before it dies and then can be removed. Greens 19-27 were the worst on the course for moss so only these had the lawn sand applied. Greens 1-18 were treated with a liquid fertilser and the first application of porthcawl. This a biostimulant with an abundance of trace elements, we have found it to be very beneficial to the general health of the greens.

We have started to work on the area where the hedge was removed on the 23rd, the turf has been removed as it was a very uneven area, the soil then scraped level and in the next week we will seed with ryegrass.

We have also started work on the final stages of the 16th ditch. Before the final turfing is done we are putting in two drains in front of the green. This is always been a very wet area on this hole and sometimes stops the green being used as the access to it can be very wet. If anyone is wondering why the area around the 16th green is so poor to drain this picture of the soil type speaks volumes, pure clay.

 It also made sense to complete this before the final leveling of the bridge turf, as the drain passes through the area we need to renovate. The drain will discharge into the ditch. The bridge section is having the turf lifted and we are leveling the crossing point as its very uneven and being such a pinch point we would like this to be improved.

The irrigation system has taken a little more time than I would have liked to get to the final stages. After the installation of the pipe we were making really good progress and then have been held up waiting for a couple a important things to arrive. I'm pleased to say they are now here so we should now see more progress. If this weather continues we will need it sooner rather than later, especially as we have some turf to lay

The ladies 22nd tee is to be completed as soon as we have water, laying turf with no means of watering it would be very risky.

Next week will be another busy one, we are aerating the greens once more with the air 2 G2 machine this machine was used at Malton and Norton Golf Club in January and proved to be a massive success. We also hope to finish the drainage on 16th.