With the routine settling back into some normality we will be concentrating on presentation of the course, with a few smaller jobs to catch up on. Sprinkler heads, winter cups and junior discs are the first priority, as mentioned the growth has been very strong and some of these are getting lost in the long grass. We also need to get caught up on lower priority areas of cutting, such as strimming, cutting copses, intermediate rough areas and the clubhouse border areas. Overall the course is looking great.We are now going to start grinding and changing blades on the greens mowers, as the sand we apply to the greens during maintenance weeks blunts the cutting edge, leading to a poor cut. When the units cut poorly they tear, rather than cut the grass. This sometimes isn't clearly visible as the grass is very short, however on closer inspection the quality of cut can clearly be seen. A torn edge can lead to more disease, stressed growth and slower greens.
We will be starting to look at removing some trees and vegetation around certain areas of the course to create disposal points for leaves and grass once we start to use the new Amazone machine. We are looking at minimising travelling across the course with heavy machines, so we need to have multiple areas across the course. initially we are looking at the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 11th, 23rd, and the end of the range.
The greens have recovered really well, holes 19-27 will require another application of sand to fill any remaining holes in a week or so. We will be applying another application of fertiliser to all the greens in the coming weeks, we will also be applying a granular fertiliser to all the tees, this will boost growth and strength going into the Autumn period when recovery from play isnt quite as good as through summer. A granular application of fertiliser will be applied to the greens once we get into October, however when conditions are still good liquid applications are preffered.
We will be booking in the spraying contractor to apply another mix of fertiliser and selective herbicide to the fairways towards the end of September, its important that this is applied before soil temperatures dip away. The programme we are currently running on the fairways has worked well this year, they are dense and growth is strong, the fairways on 14, 15 ,16 and 18 still need a little more work, there is some dry patch which can be amended using wetting agents and in combination with a little more aeration. We will be also looking to get the Air2G2 booked in sometime in October to aerate the greens again. This machine causes very little disruption to the surfaces and is a fantastic tool which keeps the greens more playable and increases the drainage as we head towards the wetter months.
