Mother natures curve ball!

Following one of the wettest winters of consecutive rain days in history and our wettest winter ever, we hoped Mother Nature would be kind to us and give us (greenkeepers, farmers, gardeners etc) a great spring to help aid recovery to those winter scars but in true style she sent us one of the coldest springs I have ever known. 

Now, day time tempratures haven't been to bad I hear you cry but the amount of frosts and cold over night tempratures even into May has been unbelievable. 

To show how far behind our growth has been this year I compared two pictures below. These were taken in the same day and month but one year apart. Above is 2014 v 2015 below. The trees tell the story! 

I also looked at the GDD (growth degree days as mentioned in other blogs) rates and compared these until the end of April. 

As you can see our magic (growth) number in 2014 at the end of April was 383 compared to 151 this year. That's 232 less, meaning we were about six weeks behind. 

Luckily May has seen some good growth days but these are only averaging 4-5 days per week not yet at the full 7 days. 

Below is copy of our weather app reading for MHGC in April. This clearly shows night and day peak and troughs. 

Compare that to the end of May and you can see some good growth days but it's still abit unstable. 

So what does this mean for us... Well they are saying we are in for another El Niño, this is a weather phenomenon with one of its documented effects is to create a trough in the jet stream off the west coast of the U.S and this tends to cause the position of the jet stream to sit lower than normal during the deep winter months.  

You may also remember it was also one of the barmiest / balmiest October / November periods as we hit 20°C in late October / early November 2010, because we were sitting under a peak in the jet stream. 

So in other words October and November could be fantastic golfing months this year followed by a cold spell!! 

This means our aim is to complete the winter projects during this good spell and have everything ready before the weather turns. 

Anyway, I m getting ahead of myself at the moment. Just thought I would share with you a little weather update. 

The question is 'Has this stopped work being carried out on the course?'... Not a chance, instead we have been in over drive and playing Mother Nature at her own game as we look to force the course into spring. I will blog more about this next! 

Matt 

Maintenance Week Video

With March's maintenance week just a few days away I just thought I would give you the link to the YouTube video I filmed last August during our last maintenance week just to show you what we get up too! 

http://youtu.be/EyY9K54ctvA

Note this is sped up = getting a day into a couple of minutes. We don't drive that fast... 

Matt 

How to avoid slow play!

Hi, 

I have just seen this article and thought it would be good to share via the blog. 

It gives good tips...but I have realised I need to take up another sport (note tip 2)! 

http://www.golf-monthly.co.uk/features/the-game/ten-tips-to-avoid-slow-play-67261#HHpwkQU7Dj8FrWqM.01

Matt 

Revisited... Target Greens!

Target Greens

Why are we on target Greens ?

Due to the high amount of frost days already in 2015 I thought this topic should re blogged. This hasn't been a major issue for the last couple of years with only 7 frost days in 2013 & 2014. We have had over 20 already this year. 

Below might help answer some questions.

How can a footprint be a killer?

When it's a footprint made on a putting surface that's covered with frost. 

It's hard to believe that simply walking across a golf green covered with frost can cause so much damage, but the proof will be there in a few days as the turf grass dies and leaves a trail of brown footprints.

That's why most courses will delay starting times until the frost has melted. We at Muswell 

Hill G.C do not want to have frost delays but require target greens to allow early morning play. 

This will help give us a better playing surface in the season. 

Why does frost cause problems?

Greens are fragile. The putting surface, or green, is an extremely fragile environment that must be managed carefully and professionally. 

Remember that every green is a collection of millions of individual grass plants, each of which is a delicate living thing. Obviously, Mother Nature never meant for these plants to be maintained at 3 mm or even 6mm for prolonged periods. This stress makes greens constantly vulnerable to attacks from insects, disease, heat, drought, cold and frost.

Frost is essentially frozen dew. It can form when the temperature (or wind chill) is near or

below the freezing point. 

The ice crystals that form on the outside of the plant can also harden

or even freeze the cell structure of the plant. When frosted, the normally resilient plant cells

become brittle and are easily crushed . When the cell membranes are damaged, the plant loses

its ability to function normally. 

It's not much different than cracking an egg. Once the shell is broken, you can't put it back together. Added to this when greens are not completely thawed you get a frost layering in the soil structure. This can mean that the top 2 inches are not frozen but the rest is. 

This is when ROOTSHEAR happens. Basically your body weight will move the top 2 inches as you walk across the green but the rest will not move as it’s frozen. This makes the two layers tear apart, destroying the root system in the greens. 

The proof is in the prints

Although you won't see any immediate damage if you walk on frosted turf, the proof will emerge within 48 to 72 hours as the leaves die and turn brown. And, since just one foursome can leave several hundred footprints on each green, the damage can be very extensive.

Thanks for understanding

The damage isn't just unsightly -putting quality will also be reduced until repairs are made.

Those repairs are expensive and, in some cases, the green may have to be kept out of play for days or weeks until the new turf grass is established. Having target greens for a while till the frost melts canpreserve the quality of the greens, prevent needless repairs and may even save you a few strokes the next time you play.

Matt 

References: USGA, STRI, BIGGA, club agronomist and Greenkeeping colleges. 

Air2g2 or R2-D2

I know why I'm writing this blog with the title air2g2 people are thinking of images of R2-D2 from Star Wars but it's not from the future or a galaxy far away but from a British company called Campey who have got the rights to distribute in the UK. 

The Air2g2 machine uses compressed air  which it injects into the ground using three deep tines. This then fractures the soil below creating gaps in the soil structure for oxygen to fill. 

I was lucky enough to find a machine (as in great demand) a haulage company and a window in the weather to allow us to use this new machine. Thanks must go to Nick at Camberley Heath for willing to arrange his needs around ours and Sports metals for sorting out the hire. 

Air2g2

So why have we hired it in? 

Following the wet period towards the end of December a couple of the greens started to show slight discolouration. This is called hypoxia and is basically when the soil is saturated. This is nothing to worry about and the spring will help us to repair any impact but something we have had to battle with. 

Our moisture readings went over 40% because of the high water table, meaning we had hit a very wet period and the air was being pushed out of the soil profile. 

 

Record-breaking rainfall and all the Irrigation water during the hot summer have left the soils wetter with no oxygen (unlike 2012 another wet year were rainfall was high in the summer, 2014 started and ended wet but had extra due to irrigation water from the borehole). 

One thing to note: the greens which we added drainage to in the past couple of years have shown now signs of this problem as there is somewhere for the water to go meaning the water table doesn't rise to high. Is this a coincidence, no. These greens were the wettest ones at the start of our drainage plans.

At this point soils are just unable to supply the grass plant with what was required in some areas. They are running on about 70% of there capability so we need to step in. 

So, the answer was for us to aerate the soils using the air2g2 machine. This machine was the main choice (following dicussions with our agronomist and other course managers) as standard aeration would mean punching thousands of holes into the greens which would just fill up like test tubes should it rain. It is normally so important to keep the profiles sealed during these winter months if possible but sometimes mother nature throws you a curve ball and you need to address it. 

Never a truer statement! 

Now we have completed the work on the greens our moisture readings came down to 32% which within an hour, this was still higher than we wanted but it's been going down since and infiltration rates have improved. 

Mother Nature then decided to help us with a week of frosts. This helps us because any water that moved through the profile following the aeration would have froze, meaning it expanded (like an ice cube does from a small drop of water) in the soil structure helping to increase the size of the gaps between particles. 

We then gave the greens a little foliar feed. This meant giving the plant the same food it would have got from the soil but direct to the leaf, meaning we were cutting out the need from the soil. 

Ok, that enough from me, just thought I would keep you informed on some of the ups and downs of our winter but let's hope we don't need to call in C3PO (Star Wars reference...again) 

Matt 

Kev's USA blog!

After winning the Toro Student Greenkeeper of the year, Kevin O Neill or aka 'Kev' looked into his prize with excitement and trepidation. 

The weather will be cold at the University of Massachusetts during the winter turf school but the heat would be on during the intense learning program. His eight week journey began this week and Kev will be doing a blog about his adventure to new lands and styles of greenkeeping, not only for our membership to read about his experience but for fellow greenkeepers across the country who watch on with envy (apart from the weather). 

Below is the link to Kev's blog:

http://turf2015.blogspot.com/

2014 wettest year ever!

Just a quick update on my favourite talking point...the weather!! 

2014 broke all records this year as the wettest we have ever had at Muswell Hill. I couldn't believe we broke the 2012 record so quickly. It hadn't felt that wet until December but when you look at the figures you can see we had a very wet start to the year and a very wet end. This year however we had a good summer. 

In contrast 2012 had a wet summer, I remember we could only hand cut greens during the club championships that year. 

The prevoius wet years were 2007, 2003 and then it's back to the Beatle era! So that's four out of the worst five years in 11 years! 

In January 2014 we ended up introducing a trolley ban for the first time in 7 years. This something we don't like to do instead we ask 'to make every effort to carry your bag if you can'. We say this to try and protect the course and you know if you can or can't but it's your course!  

Remember at the same time in January 18,000 people in Somerset had to move out of there homes due to flooding and Surrey suffered the worst floods ever. I saw plenty of pictures on social media of golf courses underwater for weeks. 

We however were only closed for 6 days in 2014 showing that the drainage work already carried out is helping. 

A lot of people say the course closes itself, which to a degree it does but we do have to protect it sometimes and the golfers on it as we have a duty of care. 

Below are some of conditions that the course is in when we have had to close on those few times.

What I do find pleasing is not the pictures of the flooding (all golf courses flood including the links or top courses from the TV) but the speed of recovery to get the course open has improved year on year. The photo below is the day after the  picture above just as I was putting the green back on and opening the course. 

The new drainage budget and increased top dressing budget will have a great effect on these condition in the coming years. If the weather pattern is changing for wetter years or heavier showers when it does, then we will need to carry on addressing this as we look to continue on the success we have already started!

Let's hope for a little bit of a drier year this year 2015 but I will take that summer again in a heartbeat :-) 

Matt