CAPEL GOLF COURSE MAINTENANCE

In greenkeeping it can at times be difficult when dealing with factors outside your control, and there are many, so you concentrate on the factors that are. Its good for you, and good for staff moral when they can see the end result of all the hard work put in. That's the beauty of this trade, for all the work you put in and comes undone through outside influences, there are plenty more instances where you can see why you love the job. The greens have come back very quickly from Reno's, they are in healthy condition and looking great. They are being cut at 3mm with double cutting this week. They may still be a little off pace as strong growth continues from the fert applied over the reno period, this will subside as we lay off the Nitrogen component and return to our normal nutrient maintenance practices.     The tees are also in great condition after renovations, plenty of growth recovering wear areas. Anthony taking great pride in his strip...

At recent green committee meetings I have harped on about the lack of winter rainfall and the potential consequences we could experience as a result. In the main, I have focused on the added pressure, with a 4 week earlier start to irrigation than average, on our water allocation particularly towards the back end of the season. Combined with the earlier start we are also contending with the need to increase usage above that normally used as the dry weather continues through Spring. We are limiting usage where we can, carefully monitoring consumption and will balance the levels over the course of the irrigation season. The other consequence of this drier than average weather pattern, is the development of Hydrophobic soil conditions or water repellent soils, in basic terms a situation where a soil will not wet regardless of the amount of water applied. Generally we experience this problem at some point through the summer season, on all turf areas to varying degrees, West Australia...