Merry Christmas to you all....

We we're lucky enough to get to see inside the Ransomes Jacobsen factory in Ipswich to see how they make every part of every machine produced and available to us to purchase! It was a fantastic day so thank you to our Rep John at P.A Turneys for sorting the day out!
Merry Christmas to you all and we will see you in 2015...

Latest qualifications

After 18 months of attending seminars and training days, Myself Steve (deputy head) and Brett (head) are now Cpd qualified...
Both made it in to the national Greenkeeping monthly magazine for November and December!

Also a big congratulations to Golf De Pierpont in Belgium where I worked at, doing some work experience last summer, next year they will be hosting the 2015 European Challenge Tour in June.

Dec 2014 - Winter projects started..

Currently we are working on the 2nd path which runs to the 3rd tee and covering it with Astro Turf hoping that it will become less slippery on very icy mornings..
Please let us know your thoughts once you've seen the first section we have started :)

Head Greenkeeper's Report 2014

HEAD GREENKEEPERS REPORT – ANNUAL

GENERAL MEETING 2014

The winter of 2013/2014 was particularly wet which severely disrupted our plans for course alterations/ improvements. In January 2014 155mm of rain fell and in February 106mm fell, both amounts being over 2.5 times the normal rainfall for this area. Fortunately however large proportions of this rain fell overnight and due to the free draining nature of the greens golfing was not too badly disrupted. I believe only two days golfing were lost to inclement weather over the entire winter period, significantly less than many local courses.

General course conditions throughout the Summer have been good. Green speed, trueness and smoothness have all been within our desired range. Being one of the driest years on record I feel that the course has performed well, as a ‘links’ type course, as is intended.

Greens Management

Greens are still following the same maintenance program that we have followed for many years now. Slight changes were made this year to the watering and wetting agent program in order to reduce the visual aspect and playability of the fairy rings. This proved to be reasonably successful with significantly less hydrophobic areas than 2013.

The 13th green underwent extensive drainage work last winter. This was thought to be a simple pipe replacement but resulted in a much larger job due to other problems being encounteredbut I am glad to report that this green is draining much more in line with the others and the returfed area is now blending well with the surrounding turf.

The first green is due for remedial work. It is proposed that the low area in the centre of the green where water collects will be lifted and the left area of the green and surround will be lowered to allow water to escape. This work has been scheduled to take place in February and hopefully with Springbeing around the corner recovery will not take too long. A temporary green has been constructed and is being maintainedin line with the other greens to provide a suitable surfacewhich will lessen the disruption when the main green is out of play.

Autumn maintenance was competed in late August this year to allow good recovery from the fine weather experienced at this time. This worked well and will be performed again in August this year, due to start on the 14th.

Tees

The 6th medal tee was reshaped in July and is now more than adequate in size to allow us to spread wear. Slight uneven settling has occurred and sand dressings in the spring time will recreate the desired levels.

Green Surrounds

As in previous years a chemical called Rescue has been applied to the surrounds to reduce ryegrass infestation. In certain places these areas currently look a little bare as control was good and a lot of grass kill was obtained. Areas have been overseeded and dressed early October and grass will slowly recolonize these areas, a desirable fescue grass, which will make chipping and particularly putting from these areas much more easy.

Long Rough Management

The sheep have been grazing the heavy rough areas for around a year now and early indications are this grazing is having the desired effect. Areas where grazing have occurred this year have been far more playable. Continual rotation of the sheep will help to create the fine whispy roughs that we seek. We are currently looking at purchasing a cut and collect type machine which will aid the sheep in thinning out of the roughs.

Gorse

The gorse plants are beginning to gain size rapidly now.Approx 160 further plants were put out in October to holes 5,7, 10 and 13 and a further 300 plants are currently being grown on in pots for planting in the spring/ autumn 2015.

For further information on golf course maintenance please view our blog, compiled by Deputy Head Greenkeeper Steve Hirons at www.kirtlingtongreenkeepers.blogspot.co.uk

End of Nov 2014

Greens Verti-drained at 10inches deep, followed by micro tines and then turf ironed straight after, greens are then cut and ready to play on with hardly any disruption showing.. This should help surface water drain quicker through the winter months!

New cut and collect machine purchased and will be used on the 5inch rough to start with, along with the sheep this should help thin the rough out

November 2014

Regular slitting of greens is now in place and here's a close up of the improvements of the roots after just 2 weeks.. 

End of Oct 2014

Autumn is finally here.. Slitting of greens and hedge trimming has now begun!!

Oct 7th - Astro turf added to 5th path

Drainage and Astro turf have now been added to the 5th path, please let us know your thoughts once you have seen it on the course..

Other work currently being done - new Gorse plantations being inserted on the front nine holes!

Oct 2014 - Conservation ideas

Since going on a very interesting seminar last month we've been thinking about conservation areas around the course and what we can do to help some of the key aspects without effecting any areas of play so in the future months we will be using some of these areas and will try to help and encourage conservation.. We had an expert (John Handley - Pitchcare) come and visit us and gave us lots of helpful tips and advice. If anyone wants to know more about this please ask us when you see us.
A few interesting facts which was on our seminar course last month -

Rescue - As some of you might notice, the surround's around our main 18 greens have gone a light brown colour, this is because we applied the chemical 'Rescue' to them which take out all the rye and coarser grasses which are un sightly and also harder to putt off.

• Overview
• Chemical/Formulation
• Packaging

Overview

Rescue is a highly selective grass weed herbicide, for the removal of Ryegrass whilst leaving fine turf grasses unaffected. Rescue is approved for use across the golf course, including greens, tees, fairways, approaches, semi-rough and rough.

Removal of Ryegrass infestation (above) from greens can achieve more consistent ball roll and a better quality fine turf surface. On fairways, Ryegrass control can improve both the playability and visual appearance of the course, as well and helping  to achieve a clean finish from mowing. In rough areas thinning out dense Ryegrass makes it easier to locate balls and avoid slow play. Research also shows the potential to of Rescue to enhance the environmental value of out-of-play rough areas, by removing unwanted ryegrass and creating a habitat where wildflowers and biodiversity can thrive.

The product has been extensively trialled by greenkeepers across the UK during 2008 & 2009 - successfully controlling Ryegrass on links, heathland and parkland courses. The trialists have alo noted useful control of other grass coarse grass weeds, including Yorkshire Fog and Purple Moor-grass.

Rescue is a produc t of the £600m annual Syngenta investment in global R&D and developed at the company's dedicated International Turf Research Centre, at Stein in Switzerland. Following extensive trials by STRI, UK golf course managers are the first in the world to receive approval for the use of Rescue.

 ALWAYS READ THE LABEL BEFORE USE. 

Chemical/Formulation

Rescue contains 45 g/l (4.59% w/w) pinoxaden and 11.25 g/l (1.15% w/w) cloquintocet-mexyl as an emulsifiable concentrate.

Pinoxaden is an entirely new active ingredient for the turf industry, from the new class of 'den' herbicide technology.

Rescue is rapidly taken up into the plant and quickly moves through the plant to leaf tip and roots.

 

Rescue targets specific enzymes responsible for cell division, stopping the growth of susceptible plants and quickly leading to leaf die back.   The growth enzyme in Ryegrass is especially susceptible to the effects of pinoxaden, whilst Poa annua, for example, is resistent to the effects. With Fescue grasses the fine leaf architecture limits the uptake of the active ingredient, so Fescues are unaffected by Rescue aplication at the recommneded rates.Browntop or Colonial Bentgrass has, occasionally, shown signs of slight discolouration following application, but quickly recovers in good growing conditions. 

Rescue is formulated with a built-in wetter for optimised performance and simplified use.

Packaging

Rescue is supplied in 1-litre Syngenta S-pac packaging.

The Syngenta S-pac has key advantages for operators including:

• No fiddly foil seal, makes opening and pouring easier and faster
• Large, easy grip lids are safe to handle and fast to use
• Large bottle opening is easy and safe to pour
• Rigid bottles are robust and safe to handle
• A slippy internal lining makes rinsing easy and ensures cleaner bottles
• Once rinsed, the S-pac is compleytely recyclable through and approved container recycling schemes

  

Fantastic seminar attended by some of the greens staff this week concentrating on conservation, and managing long rough. We are looking ourselves at areas of the course that we can use as conservation areas so we will keep you posted with that.

The team express there concerns over the gaffer :)

The team this week have held an emergency meeting with serious concerns over the gaffer, after hearing he spends all of his spare time at home reading his favourite book ...... How to grow gorse!!! #really?
If anyone see's Brett on the course please give him a big hug and tell him everything is going to be ok :) in the meantime we'll keep a close eye on the main man and will give his as much love and support as we possible can!!!

Hollow Tining - Sept 11th-13th

After a busy few weeks with greens maintenance, we finished them off by hollow Tining just the areas which get wet in the winter. We then filled the holes in with sand, brushed them in by hand and then rolled them!

Sept 2014 Greens Maintenance complete

Greens Work now complete.

Blenheim 9 holes we're hollow tined, verti cut twice, scarified twice, over seeded, top dressed with 100% sand mix, brushed in, rolled, cut, fertilised and watered in.

Main 18 greens - exactly the same as the Blenheim 9 hole apart from the Hollow Tining, this will be getting done on the wet areas at a later date. Hopefully the new seed (100% fescue mix) will start to show this week.

August 2014

New 6th tee coming on well and will soon be back in play! Now getting ready for a busy 2 weeks of greens maintenance ....

6th Tee change..... July 2014

Change of 6th Tee -
Step by step photos of how we changed our competition tee due to it being too small and getting too much wear.
We lifted the old turf and used that for turfing the banks, we used the back arm to start digging it to make it one tier and a lot bigger, one we re-routed the irrigation, we used a lazer and Steve's magic eye :) to get a final level, we shredded the soil we had there to give us our top layer, a rake, tread and a dusting of dressing and we was ready to turf it with a hard Fescue and Dwarf rye mix turf, we hope to have it back in play as soon as possible :)

July

July has been a busy month with preparations for the Club Championships and also the Seniors Club Champs! Lots of cutting, bunker work and ironing of the greens and we managed to get the course in top shape and looking nice, even with such a dry month! Since then we've built a new tee on the 6th and I'll post photos of that shortly, also lots of hand watering on the areas which dry up on and around the greens! Congratulations to Sam Chick and Big Tone (Perella) for winning the two big comps!!