Work has progressed well this week and the main focus of our work has been refining and preparing all surfaces which are improving daily.

Our maintenance and management work this week has involved applying our programmed liquid seaweed to greens collars and aprons, seaweed helps with recovery and is a general tonic for the turf.

Rolling of greens has also been completed to help restore surfaces after the recent aeration work, during the growing season we aim to roll the greens at least twice per week. Rolling also enables us to reduce the frequency of cutting during periods of stress without sacrificing pace in the greens.

We are always looking at ways to improve the quality of cut on all playing surfaces and this week we have been trialling a brush system which is attached to the from of the mowers and helps to lift the grass before cutting. the brushes in the pictures below have been very successful. Brushing at this time of year also helps to stand up procumbent growth, this is especially the case with bent grass and given we have a large proportion of bent in our greens brushing does really help to stand up the grass before cutting.

We are currently cutting greens at 4.5mm, collars and aprons are cut at 10mm and fairways at 15mm. We have cut all these areas at least three times this week to improve surfaces.
We have also spent time this week plugging out rye grass from the collars, rye grass at this time of year is very evident given its very clumpy growth habit so we use the tool below to plug it out and replace with good turf from our turf nursery.

Finally the 5th Highagte will be fully open this week, no GUR and bunkers in play. It really does look good and a great improvement.



Course Management

Course Manager’s report for April 2013

Fine Turf Management

The planned aeration back at the start of April has gone very well and given the less disruptive nature of the work undertaken surfaces have been quick to recover, however given the lack of moisture recovery has been a little restricted.

All greens received one pass with 10mm solid tines to a depth of 110mm, some greens which have shown signs of holding a little more water through the winter period have been verti drained with 18mm tines to a depth of 250mm. In some of these cases we have also completed localized hollow coring to make sure that any build up organic matter due to the wetter conditions is removed. In the region of 40 -50 tones of top dressing have been applied to greens, collars and aprons on each course.

Whilst completing the work on the greens we have also focused on renovating walk areas around greens, these areas will also be aerated through out the year to try and maintain grass coverage on these very sensitive areas.

We are currently cutting greens at 5mm up to three times per week but given the lack of growth to date very little grass is produced, rolling has been deployed on a regular basis to improve surface levels after the aeration work. Soil temperatures currently are averaging out at around 8°C , for steady consistent growth we are looking for around an average of 10-11 and above, added to this we have to deal with the lack of moisture in the soil profile which also restricts growth. Soil moisture is currently at around 10-25% so we are adopting hand watering on greens so we can focus on the dryer areas rather than blanket irrigation. Generally if our moisture content drops below 15% we start to look at irrigating, when we experience conditions like we have at present we monitor moisture levels on a daily basis to make sure playing surfaces do not dry down too much.

Fairways

With very little growth we are currently cutting fairways only once per week just to maintain surface refinement at 15mm. All fairways have been treated with wetting agent as part of our ongoing management of our fairways, we aim to complete 3-4 applications of wetting to the fairways.

Divoting has begun with all the main landing areas completed first.

The trial of using mats on a designated area on the 7^th Highgate has been removed, during the period of operation we have seen very little usage of the mats and it has been a little disappointing to see the volume of divots still being taken in the designated area. I was very hopeful that this type of protection on certain areas of high wear on the fairways would be something that could be used in future but given the response in this one area I am not so sure but I will endeavor and try this again next winter.

Tees

All tees have been verti drained using 18mm tines to a depth of 250mm, they have also received in the last month a pass using 15mm tines to a depth of 100mm to open up the surface for the top dressing we applied. Winter teeing areas have also been over-seeded to help with recovery.

We are cutting all tees at 10mm twice per week using pedestrian machines; once growth improves we will be moving to ride on mowers for the majority of tees.

All ladies marker stones which needed re-cutting have been installed on the respective tees (there are pictures of the new stones on my blog along with reports and information which is updated on a weekly basis). The drinking fountain on the 9^th Lodge is now in position along with the new fountain at the 13^th Ladies tee on Lodge.

Improvement/ alteration projects.

3^rd Tee Highgate

This is now complete and is now in play for all golf. We have received some very positive comments with regard to the increased view from the new tee and the enhanced playability of the hole.

5^th Green Surround

As you have probably seen all the turfing is complete and is settling down nicely, I am hoping that over the coming days we can remove the GUR from around the green. The bunkers are being filled with sand as I write this report and will be open for play during the early part of May.

9^th Fairway Lodge

All the turfing to the mounding is now complete and any remaining areas of bare soil will be seeded when we have some conducive weather. We will be removing the use of mats from the fairway areas over the coming weeks.

6^th Tee Lodge

Due to the volume of work completed on the 9^th Lodge fairway we have not completed the planned alterations to the 6^th Tee, this will be completed during the autumn of this year. However, we have re-turfed the worn area to the side of the tee and leveled the area where the new tee will be positioned; this will make the project quicker during the autumn.

Jonathan Wood

Course Manager

jw@j-wood.co.uk

07977448149

http://envillegcgreenkeeping.blogspot.co.uk

Has spring finally arrived? Well over the last week the weather has certainly helped us to complete the planned aeration on both courses and given the combination of a little rain and warmer temperatures we should see some good recovery from the long winter.

The aeration on the lodge course went really well and we are currently seeing some good recovery from the work, however given we are completing less disruptive aeration work throughout the year due to our organic matter levels being in our required bench mark, it will not be long before good conditions are restored.  The majority of the work was based on 10mm solid tines with localised wet areas on the greens receiving deeper aeration work. In the region of 40 tones of top dressing was applied to greens collars and aprons.

the work on Highgate has been the same as for Lodge last week and below are a number of pictures showing the work completed.

During this period we have also taken the opportunity to solid tines, top dress and seed walk areas and weaker areas around greens and bunkers as shown in the picture below.

All tees have been been verti drained using 18mm tines and top dressed, we then followed up with an application of lawn sand at 20g/ms. this lawn sand will help to promote a little growth and take out any moss or small weeds present in the sward,

Wetting agent has been applied to all greens,collars and aprons this is the first application in our programme of wetting agent application, we aim to apply this every month during the growing season. Wetting agent helps the soil to retain moisture during dry periods but also helps to evenly spread the moisture through out the profile of the soil.

The ladies tee marker stones which needed to be re-cut in line with the new stroke index's have started to be replaced back out on the respective tees.

Its a good sign the new season is with us when you receive your new flags for the season from the supplier, these will be out on the course very soon.

Finally a fantastic picture of what really goes on in some of our environmental areas!

I know I have been saying something very similar for the last few weeks but we have had another good week on both courses given the weather we have been experiencing. The raw winds and frosty mornings have made progress very difficult but given we have our planned aeration on the Lodge Courses next week conditions must improve!

Right, aeration or should I say our planned three days with the Lodge course closed so we can complete some focused aeration. As you are probably aware the main reason for aeration for us at this time of year is to underpin the various kinds of aeration which is completed throughout the year with some very focused work when we can have the course closed for a couple of days. The aeration over the past three years has seen far less disruptive work being completed due mainly to the fact that our organic matter levels through out the soil profile are well within the recommended ranges so therefore given the regular aeration completed through  the year and the amount of top dressing we use which dilutes any organic matter build up, enables us to be less disruptive. There are also other practices which reduce our OM levels such as controlled fertiliser inputs and austere irrigation application which all go hand in hand in producing firm, true putting surfaces consisting of the finer grasses.

Anyway back to the aeration next week, the picture below shows the two types of tines we will be using. On the right is a solid 10mm tine which will be used on all greens and collars to a depth of 130mm. The 15mm hollow tine on the left which removes a core will be used only on some of the greens which have held a little more moisture than is required during the very wet period last year. The greens which these tines will be used on will be 7th , 9th, and 10th greens.

Once this work is complete we will top dress all green,collars and aprons. We will be applying in the region of  50 tones of dressing to these areas. We will also be completing verti draining of all approaches and walk areas. The picture below shows the verti drain in use on the Lodge fairways this week fitted with 18mm tines.

All greens this week have been pedestrian cut at 5.5mm but given the very cold weather we have seen very little growth but the pedestrian mowers do help to lightly roll the surface to maintain levels after frosty conditions.

All of the Highgate tees have been solid tined this week and top dressed using a blend of soil and sand.

As a result of the strong cold winds we have been experiencing we have had to keep a very close watch on all newly turfed areas, so we have been out this week hand watering around the new 5th surround on Highgate.

The weekend sees our first qualifying competitions so the 9th Lodge will be fully open with a mat system on the fairway areas to protect the new turf. All tee markers are now back on summer tees.

We have also been out for the first time with the surrounds mowers to just start and get some definition around the greens and to maintain our cutting heights going into the spring.