Autumn Maintenance Week 2015

Having just completed this years Autumn maintenance work we would like to provide you with an update on the works completed and what we hope to achieve from these essential tasks. Given that it is becoming quite late in the year we have been very lucky with weather conditions this week. Soil temperatures have remained high enough to encourage germination and light winds have enabled the greens to dry quickly so that we could complete the tasks effectively. We hope that temperatures will remain stable in the next few weeks to give the seed its best chance to survive and germinate.

Pre Maintenance Work

Two weeks prior to maintenance week a graminicide was applied to the greens which targets the undesirable, coarse species of Ryegrass and Yorkshire Fog in the sward. This was completed using a pedestrian sprayer which was more time consuming but gave us greater accuracy of application. After ten days the greens were showing clear signs of the chemical taking effect. This may have caused some concern to members as the greens had turned a shade of brown! However this is normal as the chemical kills the coarse species but also causes temporary stress to the finer Bentgrasses in the sward. We were pleased to see that the Fescues remained healthy and noted the high percentage of this fine grass that was present in all the greens.

Maintenance Week

Greens

We began early on Monday morning by brushing the greens to disintegrate as much of the dead Ryegrass as possible before we began our main tasks. We then scarified the greens to a depth of 5mm to get into the thatch layer and remove organic material, making sure we carried the work on into the surrounds as much as possible.




Scarifying the 17th green.



A light top dressing was then applied and dragged into the slices cut by the scarifier. This is a major part of our on-going thatch dilution program which aims to improve water infiltration, surface firmness and ultimately greens performance.

Drag matting 17th green.

We next began overseeding the greens with fine fescue seed using the Vredo disc seeder. We did two passes on all greens and followed with a heavy top dressing to provide the seeds with soil contact which will protect the seed and aid germination rates. A total of 200kg of seed has been applied to the greens this week and we hope to see germination in the coming weeks. This increase in Fescue will improve our species composition leading to smoother, firmer and more sustainable greens. We hope the golfers will see the benefits in 2016.


The greens were top dressed again later in the week to fill in any remaining slots from the seeder and improve surface levels. A total of 40 tonnes of sand has been applied to the greens in just a week which brings us closer to achieving our target of 150 tonnes applied for the year.

8th green after renovations completed.

Approaches

After the work to the greens was completed we began some maintenance on the approaches. This included a double pass with the scarifier which removed a massive amount of thatch! (see picture) Followed by a single pass with the overseeder and a double pass with the top dresser. 40kg of seed and 9 tonnes of sand was applied.


Thatch removed from approaches.

Another pass with the overseeder and top dresser will be performed in the following week in another direction to improve species composition and firmness.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to post below. We also now have a Facebook page which contains small updates and pictures of our work and can be used to ask any questions, so please 'like' the page if you are interested, see link below.
 La Moye GC Greens