Course Update

It has been two weeks since the greens were renovated and full recovery isn't far away. The growth is still quite slow but I don't want to push it along too much and encourage the Poa annua at the expense of the Browntop bentgrass.

We have taken the opportunity to put out wetting agent on the greens, tees and areas on fairways that tend to dry out too much during summer. We have used 50/90 wetting agent which is a long term product that will give us a 90 day effective time frame before another application is made.

I will be taking moisture readings on all greens this week and it will be interesting to see if the wetting agent has had an effect on evening out the moisture profile.

We have also slightly lowered the cutting height of the fairway mower for the spring growth and the fairways are starting to look nice. We still have some more areas that need treatment with wetting agent and we will be spraying all fairways shortly for weed control.

Greens Renovation

Spring greens renovation has been completed on all greens the last two days. We have changed the process slightly because of the earlier time and cooler weather conditions. Because the browntop bent is still growing slowly we have used 12 mm solid tynes at 50mm centres, 150mm deep. We followed up with a Perruzo scarifier set approximately 10mm deep to remove some thatch. Following that we topdressed with turf sand, brushed it in then rolled the greens to smooth the surface.
We will be using our old cutting units for the first couple of cuts because of the sand on the greens. We don't want to damage the good cutting units.
The members should expect full recovery of the greens in a couple of weeks.
The photos below show the process.

Vertidrain

Perruzo scarifier

Topdressing

Brushing in

Finished result

Soil moisture meter

We have just purchased a Fieldscout100 tdr soil moisture meter to measure the actual soil moisture content in our turf areas. The meter has 2 probes that are inserted into the soil and an electrical signal is converted into  a percentage of soil moisture content.
This meter will help us manage the moisture content in the greens more accurately than ever before and avoid overwatering that can occur when you rely on a visual judgement to make a decision to water or not.
This device measures water content in the soil in a volumetric percentage and we know that browntop survives and flourishes in quite dry conditions. We have to still maintain a good playing surface that doesn't crust or go too hard so we are aiming at a moisture content in the range of 15-20% VWC. This range should encourage good browntop growth and stress out the Poa annua giving us more even putting surfaces.
We have just done the first measurements on each green( 9 samples each green) and have found some interesting results. We now have hard data on where the dry and wet areas are and can adjust the irrigation to suit. Overall I feel that the greens are in good shape and with this tool to use going into summer we will have more consistent running greens