Over the last month we have continued with leaf collecting across the entire course, this is a very large and ongoing job at this time of year and this work has been made much easier thanks to the seniors work party that has continued to be held every Wednesday and continues to have a good turnout of members all wanting to help with clearing the leaves.
All areas across the course have been cut this month; I am wanting to keep the cutting of fairways to a minimum this winter due to the amount of worm casts that they suffer from; The reason for reducing the cutting is that the rollers on the mowers squash the casts and as we move into spring the fairways are patchy in growth where these casts have been squashed over the grass. Although we do have chemicals in stock to reduce the amount of worm casts on the fairways it is quite costly and is also been withdrawn from the market soon and I feel that this product would be much better used on the greens and approaches.
Due to the high disease pressure we had experiencing at the back end of October all of the closely mown surfaces had developed disease (Fusarium patch). The greens have been sprayed with a contact fungicide to treat the disease and an application of due cure (stops due forming on the leaf or the grass) has also been made to further reduce the risk of any further outbreaks of disease on the greens.
There is now a new tee that has been constructed on the course; the 4th medal tee, due to the greens staff soon to be reduced by one third and the limited access of where the tee was to be constructed it is a little smaller than planned and the actual teeing surface measures just over 20m2. I am sure you will agree that this is and will be a much improved teeing surface in comparison to the tee mat that you had previously had to play from. The 7th medal tee has also been widened and is now needing to be top soiled. The shelter to the side of this tee will also need to be moved as once the tee comes into play it will be in the way of tee shots. We plan to turf both of these tees over the winter months allowing them to be brought into play for next season.
Ben Rutter
Head Greenkeeper