Maintenance weeks done

After a very busy couple of weeks we can finally breathe a sigh of relief as the maintenance weeks are finished. This is always a busy period of the summer for us, we obviously have more work to do to get all greens cored, collected and sanded, but there is also the tees, worn areas, wet bits to vertidrain and all the bunkers to edge during the weeks we have the course closed, that's not to mention all the normal cutting we have to do. This year hasn't been helped by the growing conditions, grass has been growing at a phenomenal rate for a long period of time. The weather has got itself into a pattern of thunderstorms and humidity which is going to be difficult to get out from according to the weather forecasters.

The other piece of news which I'm delighted to announce is Richard Malthouse and his wife Victoria have just had their first child, Harry was born last week and all are doing great, Rich is currently on paternity leave, enjoying his time away from picking up cores.

The maintenance on 19-27 holes went as well as expected given the routine we were in from doing the rest of the course. Many thanks again to our Director of Greens for the help he gave us picking up cores. Fortunately we were able to finish off all work and get the greens sanded before a torrential thunderstorm on Wednesday afternoon. 22mm of rain fell in and hour, I have heard that other areas not too far away received more, and some of the images and videos from the Scarborough area made the water stood here at Malton small in comparison. Fortunately the course had over 12 hours to drain before we arrived the following morning. On inspection the course had stood up well with only minimal damage to bunkers and paths, no real standing water and we were able to complete a full course cut. This goes to prove the work we do in terms of compaction relief and installing drainage is a great investment for the playability of the course.

The rest of the greens have recovered very well and on reflection the plan to decrease disruption has been a success, the greens are more playable and overall in good condition, there is a little anthracnose lingering on greens 2-7 but the majority of the surfaces are disease free. 

 

Since mid-aeration treatments subsequent applications of biostimulants, humic acid, seaweed and fertiliser have been put onto the greens to help water retention and boost turf vigor for the upcoming month during a period when anthracnose disease pressure can remain high. Applications of the mixes will continue to be made until growth slows.

We will be starting to cut all long rough back again in the next month or so, in conjunction with leaf collection. Removing the top growth will also remove some of the nutrient content, hopefully reducing vigor over time, as mentioned in the July report. This year is the first year of using the new Amazone machine to collect leaves, we are looking forward to seeing its improved efficiency and saving on manpower. During September, we will be clearing some areas on the course to tip the leaves which are composted back to soil over time and used out on the course, we have some areas already but we have found the new machine collects a lot more debris and grass, meaning more disposal areas are needed. These areas will be away from the main course, in trees, woodlands and waste areas, so not to effect play.

One issue the wetter summer has given us and will be a massive problem into the future is worm casts, I have mentioned this many times before, but I cannot emphasise enough what issues they give, not only us, trying to maintain good quality turf, but the golfers that play the course too. There is now no chemical to suppress worms on turf. All have been banned due to their toxic properties to the soil and the micro-organisms that live in it. That is understandable, we don’t want to pollute and harm the environment, however for over 90% of golf courses built on heavy, fertile land, worms are a big issue. Already in August we are faced with a daily challenge of casts on all surfaces. Golfers will have noticed casts collect on balls, effect ball roll and during wetter periods make the course muddy and untidy. We are trialing a few organic products which claim to have some effect on casts without harming the soil, but these are yet to be proven. In the short term please understand we can’t stop the casting problem and we are looking at alternatives to make the course as playable as possible heading into what is going to be a difficult Autumnal period.

Maintenance week 2

The end of another week and another 9 holes of maintenance complete. This week brought more challenging conditions than the previous week but the team stepped up their efforts to ensure we got all tasks completed.
This week it was the turn of holes 10-18, we started with solid tining the greens, just to emphasize why we vertidrain, here's a great example, below is the 12th green which has always had drainage problems due to the shape of the surface of the green. We have installed drains which have helped with the general health of the turf but do still struggle to remove the volume of water the surface collects. This puddle on the 12th green was one of the few on the course after some heavy overnight rain, The second photo is the same green 5-10 minutes later following verti-draining, the vertidrain removes any compaction and opens up the surface so any water can penetrate more easily through the soil and drain away. Once the surface gets sealed up water will be slower to penetrate again. Regular aeration is therefore very important to allow the greens to remain playable.

All the greens were cored with 6mm tines and collected, unfortunately this was the worst day of the week, with 26mm of rain falling, the heaviest rain started around 10am with 5 greens left to collect, the team did a fantastic job and continued in the deluge to finish the work so they were ready for sand the following morning.

Fortunately the following days weather was much better so the greens were top dressed with sand and brushed in. The bunkers on 10-18 were edged and tidied, making the most of the closure on 10-18.

The greens on 1-9 are getting back into shape. We are cutting them daily and rolling when time allows, they have also been sprayed with a mix of mirco nutrients, fertiliser and growth regulator. As you can see from the video below they are rolling great for just 7 days after deep tining, hollow coring and an application of sand. Proving the point greens maintenance at this time of the year is far more beneficial for all concerned. We are very lucky to have 27 holes giving 18 good greens all of the time. Following the maintenance we will apply another light dressing of sand to ensure any minor imperfections are dressed out to improve smoothness.

This weekend we will roll 10-18 following the work and start cutting regularly from Monday next week.

Ready to go again

Maintenance week 1 is complete, now we gear ourselves up to start all over again on holes 10-18. These holes will be closed from Monday this week up until Friday morning. In this time we will carry out the same procedure as on all the other greens we have done so far, 12mm solid tine, 6mm hollow tine, topdress and roll. The greens on 1-9 will be beginning to settle down now, we have rolled them over the weekend to help smooth the surfaces, we will try to cut them as normal from Monday, depending on sand on the surface. On Wednesday they will be sprayed with fertiliser and biostimulants to promote healthy recovery.

On Thursday and Friday we continued solid tining walkways and some wetter areas on the fairways on holes 1-9. This took its toll on the solid tines as some areas of the course on holes 1-9 have stones very shallow below the surface, these areas are unknown when tining and all it takes is to hit one and bang, the tines end up like the ones below. All told around 12 tines were damaged beyond repair from doing walkways on holes 1-9, fortunately the chances of stone damage on holes 10-18 is a lot less as the subsurface is deeper and turns to clay opposed to stone. We will also try to complete 10-18 bunker edging this week.

I have previously mentioned worm cast issues we face and the lack of chemicals available to control them. A recent video I saw online of worms being extracted by the use of mustard made me want to experiment a little to see if was of any use to reduce damage to our turf. I selected 4 areas where i know cast are a real issue. 3 of them around the practice green and the last one around the edge of the front putting green. The area around the practice green was sprayed with a mixture of ground mustard powder and water, at a rate of 50gms per 5 litres water. One area spayed once, one sprayed twice and the third sprayed 3 times, so in theory doubling and tripling the amount of product applied to each area. The areas were 6m x 6m each and clearly marked to identify whether the mustard has had any effect of casts. The forth area was treated with the same amount of product per 5 liters of water, however this time was applied using a watering can to ensure the soil was soaked sufficiently. The sites will be checked this week and any changes to casts will be recorded and I will publish my results on my next blog.

Maintenance week 1

This week work began on holes 1-9. Starting off with a 12mm solid tine and followed by a 6mm hollow tine, the same process as we carried out on the 2 putting greens.

The greens were then topdressed with straight sand and brushed in. The first couple of days the weather was ok, a few showers which didn't stop progress. The end of the second day we had only 1 and a half greens to collect cores from when we had a very severe thunderstorm. Fortunately it wasn't long lasting and we got off lightly as only 1 mile further north received more rain and more damage. 9mm fell in 20 minutes which created softer than ideal conditions to collect the rest of the cores and to start topdressing. We have now completed the work to all 1-9 greens, we now are looking to promote recovery and return the greens to a playable condition. To help increase the surface smoothness and encourage good growth the greens will be rolled regularly, cut when possible and an application of fertiliser, amino acids, biostimulants and wetting agent will be applied next week.

As holes 1-9 are closed until Friday morning to carry out the work we are taking full advantage and carrying out other tasks to the course. All the grass has been cut on holes 1-9 in the afternoon when we are not able to work on holes 10-27 and we have edged all bunkers on the closed course as well. All 1-9 tees, walk ways, worn areas and hopefully approaches and greens surrounds will be solid tined too. The team have worked really well this week to complete all necessary tasks.

I must stress this type of aeration is a once a year operation that has to be done at some point in the year. We feel this time of the year is the ideal time as recovery is the quickest it can be. I appreciate golfers will wonder why the greens are done right in the middle of the playing season, but to be honest the playing season is a 12 month cycle nowadays. So there is no 'good' time to do it from that point of view. The rest of the year maintenance is planned to be of 'minimal' disruption, however it is ongoing throughout the year. We have had a lot of compliments regarding the course and the greens over the last few years and it all boils down to the work that is put in, to get the course that way and make play on them possible on the greens for a 12 month season.
The picture below is the front putting green only 7 days after the work has taken place, another 7 days and I would expect the surface to be back to a near normal state.

This is what it was like 7 days ago

 As you can see from the picture the sand we apply every year is beginning to show in the soil profile, the upper portion of the green core is dominated by sand and the roots penetrate deeper below this through the aeration holes. The amount of organic matter in the upper profile is not thick, matted or excessive and it smells aerobic (anaerobic soil smells like rotten eggs). 

The full profile shows the problems we face regarding drainage, the lower profile is quite heavy soil which drains very poorly. With no drainage on the majority of greens, this can lead to poor upper surface drainage once the water table rises sufficiently during heavy rain, however during moderate amounts of rain the nature of the sandy top layers can cope and remain firm, the work we are doing can only improve this.

Next week we are starting on holes 10-18, repeating the same process as above. Greens on holes 1-9 will be back in play however will not be regularly cut until the sand on the surface reduces as this causes severe damage to the mowers when cutting in wet conditions. A poor cut due to blunted blades will quickly increase disease.