A Royal appointment and Royal members!

Reading this title you might be starting to imagine the the name 'Royal Muswell Hill Golf Club' or thinking I might run into William and Kate playing the back nine one evening! 

Unfortunately this is not the case but we have had a visit from one of the Royal household staff. One of the horticulturists from Buckingham Palace came down to the club to to spend the day with us and see some of the data collection and theories behind modern greenkeeping practices after reading about the club in some of the turf magazines. 

Above is a picture of Joe testing the greens with a soil compaction metre and the infiltration metre. 

After the first contact (which at first I thought was a friend joking around with me) was made we arranged for Joe Vardy one of their horticulturists to visit for the day to exchange ideas from our industry to what they do in Buckingham Palace with regard to soil conductivity, tests on alpine plants or fertiliser suspension tests. Joe came with an immense knowledge of plants and their back rounds. He had previous experience working at RHS Wisley.

Joe showing us how to use a soil conductivity metre. 

I really enjoyed sharing ideas with Joe on compaction tests, green speed, smoothness, infiltration rates, heights of cut, prism gages, moisture tests, E.T rates (evaporation), soil analysis and soil cores. All of these could be transferred over to lawn maintenance practices at Buckingham Palace and would give them the same guidance it gives us. These process help us shape playability, irrigation rates, fertiliser applications, turf smoothness and density. 

I am very much hoping to do an away leg and visit Buckingham Palace ;-) 

The second part of this blog is dedicated to our members. Some of the ladies section (and Men's) volunteered to help with the long task of getting some of the debris off the course following the high winds and wet winter we experienced. This was a great help and allowed them to see the size of the task we had in those first few weeks as the spring came in. I would like to thank them for there help. 

Next up was the Divot trophy, this was held on Good Friday. The turnout of the membership to play in this year on year has been fantastic. Again a full field of players went out and divoted (added seed and soil) to the divots on the fairways. We placed over 225 buckets along the middle of the holes with each team of four, divotting their fairway for 45 mins before playing a Texas scramble (including all the greenkeepers). A great day was had by all with a lovely meal in the clubhouse and a Jazz band playing after. 

So, we might not have official royalty at the club but these members who give up their time to help the club and be involved are Royal members and I would like to say thank you all for your help from the club.

Matt 

Aeration & Course maintenance week

Another successful course maintenance week has been carried out this spring with all the greenstaff working incredibly hard to get it done as quick as possible to allow the greens to recover quicker. 

The soil analysis 

Following our resent soil analysis it became apparent the wet winter had taken its toll on the greens (like most golf courses in the UK). Now above ground they looked good for the time of year and the weather but the soil analysis showed us that they were in desperate need of air as the high levels of rain and high water table had squeezed out the air from with in the soil particles. 

(To imagine this think of a bucket of golf balls, this represents the soil particles and then fill the bucket to the top with water, it doesn't leave you with much air. I then imagine how long would you survive with your head in that bucket! Ok it's not that drastic but you can see what I mean,I hope). Also in turn the OM levels or thatch levels had increased due to wet conditions making it hard to break down (more on that later). Some other observations were noted and the fertiliser and aeration plans were drawn up for the coming year. 

Maintaining the right levels of thatch or Organic Matter as it's also called, can be a challenge for all greenkeepers. The amount of thatch and the speed it breaks down are all weather dependant. 

If it's warm and wet the grass plant is growing more which increases the debris which in turn becomes OM. If it's to wet the OM levels increase as it's to wet for the fungi and bacteria to break it down and if it's hot and dry the plant doesn't produce the amount of growth meaning not as much of an increase but outfield areas with no moisture may stop breaking down as the fungi and bacteria need some moisture to survive. Ok I hope that makes sense! 

The greens renovation works 

Not only do we look at the soil analysis we also take readings from the greens to find out how we should aerate. We use a compaction meter to find the layers below the greens that maybe causing a lock up for the roots. These were recorded at two different depths and we set our aeration machines at the depths to break these pans. 

The first picture on this blog shows the Verti drain which used 1/2 inch tines and was set at 9 inches deep. This was the first aeration on the greens we carried out that week. 

This was followed by the pro core machine fitted with micro hollow tines.  Below is a picture of the hollow tining being carried out on the greens. This process is only 60mm deep and removes only the OM in the surfaces. 

Hollow tining reduces the OM levels while increasing o2, H2O and allows for root development.

Hopefully you can see why we carry out certain operations to reduce this ( different actions include the use of the hollow tine, solid tine and scarifying), all of these help keep an optimum level for sports turf performance 

Don't get me wrong, Soil Organic Matter performs many beneficial functions in soil,so striking the right balance is hard. The benefits include: 

– It provides nutrients  

– holds and exchanges nutrients 

– holds and releases water 

– improves soil porosity by preventing clay particles from sticking to 

each other  

 

• However high levels of soil Organic Matter may be detrimental as this can cause:

– Moisture retentive 

– Poor rooting 

– Soft/hard surfaces 

– Increased disease activity

Anyway back to the work on the greens- following the hollow tine the greens were then blown off and cleared away. 

Next we top dressed (using sand), this was then brushed in to the holes filling them up. This helps with drainage and infiltration rates and also dilutes the OM levels. (It takes an awful lot of brushing with the standard brushes to get the sand down).

Once they started to look like greens, we ran the pro core over them again! but this time with 12mm tines set at 6 inches deep. This was the second layer we found from our tests. The reason we try to carry out more than one aeration at a time is simply the ball roll performance is not made worse from the following operations. Meaning the greens are bobbly whether you do 1,2,3 operations. So we might as well get more done in one hit rather than several hits. 

The greens were then top dressed again 

(In total 50 tons of sand was put into the greens in three days, our goal for the year is 130). Not bad going when you think of it like that! 

Next we used a sweep and fill brush that we demoed from Oliver's. What a great piece of kit for getting the sand into the greens with ease. This brush has two direction brush going the opposite ways and with one or two passes it fills the holes up. 

After one brush! (Below)

Next we wanted to make sure the OM levels that were getting a touch high (but not out of the comfort zone) were hit again. We double scarified some of the greens with high OM and single passed the greens that were reasonably good. We set the vertical blade on the scarifiers to -10mm. 

We managed to remove a trailer load each day (Mon and Tue) of thatch along with some of the excess sand. This material was to good to throw away and will be used in other areas for renovation. 

Next some of the thin areas were then overseeded by hand ( doing this increases the rate of application). 

The greens were then fertilised using a 4.3.4 fertiliser to aid recovery and to get the grass coverage up for the season ahead. The only down side to this is the growth rate that comes when the GDD (growth degree days) increases. This is why I only put a granular fertiliser on at the start of the year. The rest of the year we apply weekly folliar feeds. Doing that enables us to dictate the growth rates to when we want them. I ll blog about that in the future.  

Other areas

Other areas of the course also received renovations during this spring time. These included scarifying fairways and blowing clear. 

This is very labour-intensive and takes just under a week to complete. This helps reduce the thatch in the fairways, it stands up the lateral growth giving a tighter closer cut fairway. Lastly following our iron and fertiliser applications this process has allowed us to rip out some of the moss which had died following the iron treatment to allow new growth to fill these areas. 

Tees and aprons were also Verti drained and certain tees received extra work. The surrounds were tined to 4 inches. 

Carrying out all of the above works may be a pain sometimes in the short term (while the works are being carried out) but in the long term and for the season a head it will pay dividends! 

I hope this has given you another brief look at what we ve been doing with regard to aeration and renovations. I ll blog again soon. I ve got a lot to catch up on. 

Matt