Greens Update

The greens are recovering well from the hollow coring maintenance task where we were able to put down around 60 tons of sandy topdressing into the soil profile.

 

Unfortunately the greens were hit with some fusarium disease after this work. Conditions became very favourable for it with stressed greens and humid weather conditions. Obviously the greens became stressed during this task, coring, topdressing, brushing etc all put the greens to the test. A fungicide was sprayed to kill the disease and stop any further spread.

 

The areas which were badly affected back in November by a chemical reaction have started to fill in nicely now that we have some growth. Some of the worse off areas will be plugged out and replaced by turf form the edge of the greens. This work is ongoing.

 

This week the greens were double verticut (a light scarify) and then handcut so that we could attempt to cut out all the winter lateral growth and also stand up the seed heads that are coming out. However having done this the greens now look a little pale, especially due to the excessive winds we have been experiencing. So the greens will be sprayed on Friday with another feed and then topdressed on Monday so we can help to regain the smoothness we are looking for.

 

The dominant grass species in the greens is called Poa Annua or Annual meadow grass. It's actually present throughout the course on all the surfaces. When this poa goes through its spring flush, once soil temperatures have reached a suitable level, it sends all its energy to the top of the grass leaf and produces a seed head. These are undesirable and unsightly but unfortunately due to the vast numbers they are inevitable. The other main species of grass in the greens is called Bentgrass. Poa and Bent have very different characteristics and needs. They also can grow at different rates in different temperatures. Therefore there is a lot going on with the greens at the moment and patience is the key.

 

We are doing our best to improve the surfaces all the time and now that we have growth it won't be long until the greens are where we all want them. After the wettest winter on record and a very cold spring this year has so far been very challenging to provide suitable surfaces but we are hopeful that they are not very far away.