As the title post says this weather currently really is feast or famine, a very hot spell in May and now June is like winter again!
We have seen huge amounts of rainfall recently with the water table still high in areas and some bunkers out of play.
The proposed aeration at the start of June has to be postponed with the ground simply being to firm and conditions too dry to run the slit disc seeder in the ground, of course the biggest potential problem was that these slits could open up during dry periods.
But!! follwing the great british weather an opportunity came to get the Air2g2 aeration machine in and the Vredo disc seeder,this was carried out last Tuesday/Wednesday and with the wet and warm weather we have had we have had great recovery already and you can hardly see the slit lines at all. The Vredo is a wonderful non disruptive piece of machinery and we have pumped in around 200kg of fescue seed into the greens.
The greens also last Sunday/ Monday had an 8mm por core aeration and on Wednesday with the heavy rain forecast had a sand dressing to further help firmness, trueness and smoothness on the greens.
The AIR2G2
The Vredo disc seeder.
So as you can tell it's been a real balancing act of using the weather to our advantage and getting these operations done in the least non disruptive manor as possible as not to affect day to day golf, the greens are currently very good and with 200kg of fescue to germinate, im a happy man!
We are already seeing some germination already after just 6 days with such favourable conditions, a application of seaweed and a couple of other nutrients will further enhance the chances of good germination.
We recently had Alistair Beggs our agronomist here from STRI and Alistair was very happy with the progress we are making on the greens and especially in reducing the organic matter levels as shown below
It is very important to understand the long-term implications of all maintenance practices in order to develop sustainable golf turf management model and best management
practices to minimize organic matter accumulation.
We are aerating as much as we can to try and break down the
organic matter and create plenty of air space. And we are already seeing much
improved root growth, which lends itself to everything being very healthy in
the rootzone.
With the 200 tonnes per year of sand dressings we should see further improvement in the organic matter levels very soon.
The biggest advantage to getting a good amount of sand in the upper profile is that it will provide a drier environment for the finer grasses to dominate.
The biggest advantage to getting a good amount of sand in the upper profile is that it will provide a drier environment for the finer grasses to dominate.
The plan is now to boost the populations of the finer grasses with further browntop bent and fescue overseeding in August/ September.
The rest of the golf course is looking in very good shape with the fairways having recovered nicely after the hot dry spell.
The Links Team have been working hard on keeping presentation as high as possible on a daily basis, we host the British Girls Championship in August and am very much looking forward to watching them tackle the links.
The new short game area is coming along quite nicely, it's great to see so many golfers using it and has been a great asset to the practice facilities of the Golf Club.
Regards
Rhys Butler , Links Manager, Royal St David's Golf Club.
