Course Update

Coming up to 4 weeks since green renovations were completed and the recovery is complete. With some timely rain and good growing conditions we have used minimal fertiliser to get the recovery that we were after. We applied Revolution(wetting agent) to the greens the week of renovations and will continue on a monthly basis.The greens were being cut at normal mowing height (3.5mm) within 2 weeks of completion and were also rolled regularly.

12th green 2 weeks after renovations

Closeup of the 12th green

Once the greens had fully recovered and there was no more visible sand on the surface we began our dusting program. With the new Dakota 410 topdresser we have the ability to apply very light dustings of sand to the greens on a regular basis. The sand was barely visible on the surface and we brushed and rolled all greens to push the sand into the crown of the turf. I plan on doing this on a weekly schedule to try and match the rate of growth of the turf.

Light dusting with the topdresser

A closer look at the light dusting

With the spring weather kicking in our mowing regime has increased over the last couple of weeks and the result is more definition in the mowing pattern. The results of the fairway overseeding in April, and the wetting agent program that has started over the whole course, has shown up with a more dense turf surface and better playing conditions. We will be spraying the fairways for weed control shortly and I expect further improvements in the quality of the fairways.

 Fairways are also coming along well. 

Greens renovation

This week we had the course closed Monday and Tuesday for our greens renovation. We renovated our greens by vertidraining with 13mm solid tynes at 50mm spacings and at 150mm depth. This was followed by topdressing with Turf sand using the new Dakota 410 topdressing machine. The sand was then brushed in and then rolled to incorporate the sand into the tyne holes. After this process was completed we sprayed wetting agent on all greens and washed it in with irrigation to get the product into the soil profile. We also received timely rain which would have also helped. I expect quite rapid recovery from this renovation and we should be back to normal playing conditions in a week or two. Below are some photos of the process.

vertidrain on 17 green

Loading sand into the top dresser

Top dresser in action

Brushing and rolling the sand

Closer look at the setup

The finished result after several rolls

Course Update

Since the last post the weather has continued to be amazing for this time of the year. The mild, dry conditions have continued apart from a couple of occasions when we got a quick southerly blast of winter weather. The last storm a bit over a week ago brought strong winds and quite a bit of rain which left the course in a bit of a mess with trees down and debris everywhere. Thanks to Dave and the team of volunteers, the course was cleaned up fairly quickly with a couple of big trees remaining to be cleared away. Several large Macrocarpas actually fell onto neighbour's property damaging fences and a garage. Because of the extent of  the damage we had to get tree professionals in to safely remove the trees so as to avoid further damage.

Fallen macrocarpa on 17

Macrocarpa on neighbour's garage

Hailstones on the first green

A little over a month ago we completed treating all the fairways with a product to control worm castings. It has been quite successful with no sign of casting in any treated areas and we will continue to monitor the results. At this stage it is quite promising and could be a viable option for future control.

Fairways free of worm castings

As is normal practise this time of year we are going through the irrigation system and checking the operation of all the sprinklers to make sure we are ready to go in springtime when watering is required. We have found a few split sprinkler casings as well as several blocked nozzles and weeping sprinklers. There has been nothing major unlike last year when we had major controller issues. It is fairly normal when we first fire up the irrigation system to get a few pipe leaks and this year has been no different. We have had 2 large pipe repairs, one being an old 100 mm a/c pipe that we had to dig up under a pine tree.

Pipe leak on 5th fairway

100 mm pipe repaired

A/C pipe repaired under macrocarpa near 6th tee

The start of spring has begun with strong growth on the fairways and in the rough and we are now into mowing mode on a regular basis. We have also started our sand dusting program on the greens with the new Dakota topdressing machine and are only about 3 weeks away from our green renovations. I am expecting excellent recovery from the renovations this year with the soil temperatures being a little higher than we would normally be this time of year. As I mentioned in a previous post the course has never looked better for this time of year so I encourage everyone to get out, bring a mate and enjoy themselves.

Course Update

The winter continues to be mild and dry which has allowed us to carry out vertidraining of the fairways and tees with no weather disruptions. We have now finished vertidraining with 12mm solid tynes at 150mm depth at 75mm spacings.

Vertidrain with 12mm tynes

We have been experimenting with products to control the worm castings on fairways and tees this winter and we have definitely had an improvement in the condition of the fairways with a lot less mud being picked up on golfers shoes, trundlers and equipment. We are also regularly dragging the fairways with a weighted hose that breaks up the worm casting before they get smeared with the foot traffic.The fairways are in the best condition I have seen them in for this time of year.

The newly seeded area between the 3rd green and the 4th tee has come along nicely. It has been recently fertilised and reseeded in a couple of washed out areas.

Seeded area between 3rd green & 4th tee

In the next few weeks we will be starting the winter maintenance on the irrigation system. This entails trimming around every sprinkler on the golf course and then checking for correct height and verticality, correct operation of the sprinkler and repair any weeping or broken parts that are found.
After the irrigation system frustrations of last year behind us I am hoping we will be in great shape when we need to start irrigating in springtime.

Overall I don't think I've seen the golf course looking this good at this time of year so I would encourage everyone to get out and enjoy themselves while the weather is still holding up -you never know when when it will change for the worst!

A frosty morning

Keen golfers !

1st green and surrounds

Heavy rain

Early Saturday morning we received 27mm of rain in about 4 hours and caused quite a lot of surface flooding over the course. We haven't had a downpour like that for about 2 years and it resulted in the course being closed for the day. Fortunately we dry out quite quickly and were back open Sunday for the club championship finals. Below are some photos of the flooding.

One of the benefits of the rain was the excellent results we had with the application of Tea seed meal Friday afternoon. We applied it to all the green surrounds and quite a few bad areas on fairways that are shaded all afternoon this time of the year. The results were spectacular.

Earthworms in the surrounds

Earthworms on the 10th fairway

Even earthworms in the bunkers

Earthworms on the greens

Course Update

Since the last post we have had unseasonably warm, dry weather which has been fantastic for the establishment of the newly over-seeded fairways. We had seed germination after 2 weeks and all of the thinner areas are coming away nicely and the grass cover throughout has been kicked along with weekly foliar applications of  Ammonium Sulphate.

Seed germination in a bare area after 2 weeks

One of the projects that we have managed to do was the removal of the remains of the old path between the 3rd green and the 4th tee. The old buried rubble was causing a lot of rutting from the cart traffic and was also very difficult to keep moisture in the profile because it was very shallow. Once this material was removed we filled it with fresh soil, added an extra sprinkler and control cable at the 4th tee end and seeded it with Fescue and Browntop. Hopefully we will get germination before winter really sets in.

Newly seeded walkway to 4th tee

For some time I have been researching methods to control earthworm castings on our fairways and tees. Since the removal of Thiodan for earthworm control, our fairways have worsened each year to the point they became very muddy in areas certain times of the year. We haven't had much success with the various methods we have tried and products like Earlybird were very expensive to apply to large areas. Recently I was told about a granular version that had just been released and was considerably better value for money. I was very quick to get some granules to try out before we got into the "muddy" season. I have trialled it in about 10 areas of the course that has historically been very bad for castings. Once applied it was heavily watered in and within  10-15 minutes hundreds of earthworms were at the surface. Since the application we have had over 50mm of rainfall over weekend and thousands of earthworms have surfaced. Very impressive! It will be interesting to see how long the earthworms will be suppressed for until another application is required.

Tea seed pellets for earthworm control

Earthworms on the surface after weekend rain

What's happening on the course

It's been a very busy time on the golf course since my last post. We have had a very warm, dry summer and it was a great test to see how the irrigation system would perform after the  control system and wiring were recently repaired. Well I can say it worked a treat with no issues at all other than a pipe repair on the 3rd fairway which was probably a remnant of the damage from the earthquakes.

Damage to an 80mm fitting after some recent shakes

The repaired pipe

With the warm weather came very strong turf growth over the whole course. During this time I had a lot of trouble keeping the greens at a good speed even with the use of growth regulators and very little nitrogen applied. The tees, fairways and rough were also needing quite frequent mowing which took up a lot of our time. Leading up to our renovations on the greens I only applied foliar nitrogen at 10kg/Ha a week prior to vertidraining with 18mm solid tynes and we got amazing recovery. We were nearly back to normal mowing height 2 weeks after renovation with no extra fertiliser.

The 9th green 2 weeks after 18mm solid tynes and topdressing.

Recently we got news that funding had been approved for the purchase of a topdressing machine and we chose to buy a Dakota 410 towed topdresser. This machine can put out topdressing at a heavy rate or very lightly to dust. It can also be used to spread fertiliser. This purchase will allow us to dust our greens on a regular basis through the growing season and help dilute thatch, firm the surfaces even more and help with better smoothness and ball roll. This will be a major improvement on how we have been able to manage our greens previously.

An example of the Dakota 410 applying a very light dusting.

Our most recent project on the course was completed today and that was the overseeding of all the fairways with a fine fescue/browntop mix. Over the last 3 years we have been gradually removing the ryegrass from the fairways and encouraging the browntop and fescue to take over. This process has been fairly successful and we were now at the point where we could introduce more browntop and fescue without it having to compete with other grasses. We will have about 8 weeks for the seed to establish before we hit the colder months of winter when the grass growth will slow down. Next spring and summer should enable us to thicken up the turf and have a much better fairway surface with a more dense stand of turf.

Seed drill in action

The slits where the seed is placed

Close up of the seed sitting in the slit 

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