Course Update – October
Published on 2nd October 2024 in Course News
Course Update
The weather has turned and starting to finally see some growth back out on the course, Full course irrigation has commenced with watering 2-3 nights of the week. Some nice rainfall has also come our way which is helpful but also accelerates the growth of our rough inside the tree line with mowers struggling to keep up.
Poa Treatment
We have concluded our poa cure applications for the season with the 4th and final application sprayed out on the 9th of September. We feel the results have been positive and will look to continue the program next season. Over the course of the summer dabbing/ painting of any remaining poa will occur in our pure distinction greens. Scarring on the greens is still evident where the poa once stood and we are now seeing a strong germination of bent seed injected into these areas. Come renovations these areas will cover over quickly with increased nutrients and heavy sanding.
1st GREEN
20th June – 3 days after initial treatment
19th July – taken after 2nd application
25th September – taken after 4th and final application.
Kikuyu Program
Our large-scale spraying has now also concluded for the season, we are now at manageable levels within our fairways and from this point on we will look to manage this by spot spraying through the summer months and into next winter. The chemical we save by doing this can now be used further out into the roughs. Green surrounds still prove to be tricky to manage due to the dangerous nature of using monument herbicide and the threat it poses to bent grass greens – unfortunately the 17th green is a prime example on what monument herbicide can do. The green surround had been sprayed, a quick irrigation cycle was ran the following morning knocking off any surface residual to remove the risk of mowers and foot traffic taking the chemical over the green. We were expecting rain the couple of days after spraying but not anticipated the 75mm deluge which moved the chemical sideways through the profile which then ran through the green. Patching out of this area will be done prior to greens renovations.
Course Renovations
This year the course will be closed for us to undertake our course renovations from the 14-15th of October. Not only will we be doing greens we will also have a contractor onsite to give our fairways a much-needed core. For our greens, a standard 19mm hollow tine will be used at a 2inch spacing with a depth of 4inches. While fairways will be cored with a 25mm hollow with 75mm spacing and at a depth of 8inches. Like in previous years greens coring will commence on the Sunday afternoon to give us a good head start and the process will consist of a 2x verticut followed by coring, soil amendments will be applied and worked down into the core holes followed by sanding. For the fairways the contractor will come in and core the fairways only, we will bust up the cores by using metal drag mats to separate the grass husk and sand, fairways will then be blown and a wetting agent applied. A granular fertiliser will be applied to fairways at the beginning of November.
Couch Nursery
The new turf nursery has been planted with both Santa Ana and Wintergreen Couch. Strike rate has been good and once day time temperatures increase a little more these areas will cover over very quickly.
Practice Fairway
The 1st of 3 stages will get underway from the 30th September, The first 110m has been sprayed and this area will be rotary hoed, levelled and planted with Santa Ana couch – This area will be roped off to prevent the range collector driving over it. We are looking at a late Nov – early Dec grow in period, once this area is completed, we will move onto the next section and so on. This project will be carried out and completed over the entire summer period.
This time of year there is always plenty going on to keep us busy, once we get through the renovation period our focus shifts towards the Castieau Classic weekend, 10th green project rolls along directly after that and before you know it…