Greenkeepers’ Report - October 2023
It’s been a while since we’ve explained everything we’re doing on the golf course so it’s time we made another Greenkeeper’s Report.
2023 has been a challenging year for us on the golf course due to a few things including the changing weather conditions which has meant the course has been continually wet throughout most of the year. From 1st January to 1st October we have had over 400mm more rain that in 2022!
Greens
We’ll be the first to admit that our greens were not as consistent this summer as they were in 2022, mainly because we had disease scars from last winter’s bout of Fusarium which meant that there were patchy areas which didn’t fill out until mid summer and that meant we couldn’t cut them quite as short in April and May to get them quicker and more smooth.
We’ve recently had our greens soil test results back for this year and we’ve not seen as big an improvement as we’d like to have done in the soil health from 2022 (after a big jump from 2021 to 2022) so we’ve now increased our budget towards the greens and to concentrate on this. We are still plagued with a little too much surface tension so those with eagle eyes will see us out more frequently gently aerating greens and lightly sanding them when possible.
In the last month, since coring and topdressing the greens, we have done a lot of work on them which many golfers don’t see, including:
Application of Soilmax Plus (Humic Acid Solution) to reduce the pH of the soils to aid disease resistance
Application of Rocastem which is a liquid aerator that uses chemical reactions in the soil to create air pockets within the surface
Application of T-Thatch biostimulant to increase the breakdown of thatch within the profile
Application of autumn slow-release fertiliser with high phosphorus and potassium content
Double scarify at 10mm depth
Light spike at 25mm depth
Light sand topdress (around 0.2 tonnes per green)
Three vericuts
Applied fungicide to stop any Fusarium development
Hand over-seeded disease scars from Take-All patch which attacked in August & September
In the next few weeks we will be doing a deep spike to around 150mm and a deep slit of 180mm every other week while it’s not too wet for us to get to the greens with the tractor, we will also be adding a very small amount of sand to the greens when possible. All of this will continually help the turf breathe and aid porosity for getting moisture away from the surface.
This will focus on getting the greens in shape for winter to ultimately give us a better start into Spring 2024, and while this itself has been a challenge with the frequent wet weather we’re confident that next year will be a good improvement.
Tees
As we go into winter we recognise that our tees become very punished from the continued wear of a busy golf course. This autumn we have started an aeration process on our tees and this will become an annual regime. This week we scarified our tees to a depth of 10mm, next week we will be deep spiking them and we will be topdressing them with sand in the coming fortnight. This will also aid better turf health and regrowth to give better playing surfaces throughout the year.
Worm Cast Issue
Since 2017 a chemical called Carbendazim has been banned for use within the UK, and this was the active ingredient of the pesticide which we used to suppress worms on our golf course in the winter months. Up until this ban we used to spray the chemical on our greens, tees and fairways every October to suppress worms for around 4-5 months. This created clean surfaces with little to no mudd problems even when very wet, and it helped drainage too. Since we stopped spraying the chemical in 2017, the worm cast issue has progressively got worse and worse every winter, and this is affecting the quality of golf course we can produce.
This has become prevelant on a weekend - we don’t mow greens on many Sundays especially in winter, but the increase in worm casts on greens this year has meant we have now put some processes in place to get rid of these either by mowing the greens or by using a greens switch cane.
Many other golf courses are going through the same issues as us. Some of the more wealthy course were able to stock-pile the chemical before the ban to continue use into the future but we weren’t in a position to do that.
What are the solutions? Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to the worm problem. We have done a lot of research into other methods but unfortunately Cabendazim was the magic bullet, and it is now not available. There are some new chemicals on sale but they are much less effective and more more expensive (8-12 weeks effect for 10x the cost). We have committed to trying some of these new chemicals on greens and tees only but unfortunately we will not be able to justify the £10,000+ we would need to cover the fairways too. The extra aeration on tees mentioned above will help too.
We live in hope that another product will come to market which will help greenkeepers all around the UK but right now we will have to continue trying other methods.
Paths
Last year we bought a few lorry loads of astro turf which had been pulled up from a football pitch in Hull and we aim to cut this up and build more paths during the winter to hopefully keep buggies on for longer and also reduce muddy areas from concentrated traffic. This process will be ongoing for the next few winters and we thank you for your patience.
Bunkers & New Practice Bunker
We are going to be building a bunker this winter on the practice area. This will be for our members to use at their will, all we ask is they rake it afterwards. We will be building it with a drain in the base and the same sand as our current bunkers.
We will also be continually topping up bunkers with sand throughout the winter as and when we can, we have a stock pile of around 30 tonnes of sand for these jobs.
Divot Bags going Missing
We are delighted that people have been taking the divot bags from the first tee onto the golf course to repair their divots, this is fantastic! Unfortunately we have had around 30 divot bags go missing in the last four months so please, if you have any of these bags at home please return them. We realise that once the divot bag is empty golfers will put them in their bag and it will be easy to forget about them, but we really could do with as many back as possible!
There is a divot bag bin as you walk from 18 green to the car park and we would encourage all golfers to put their empty bag in this so that they can be refilled immediately. Thank you.
There’s always room for Improvement
As always we are trying to make progress every year but we also recognise we can still improve in every area so we would like to thank our members for their continued loyalty and patience throughout the last few years. Being a busy club brings new challenges to overcome and while we don’t always get it right we’re trying our best to give you the best Burstwick we can so thank you!