We received 185.5mm of rainfall during the month of July, with 5 days recording rainfall. 181 mm fell on the days between the 20th – 23rd of July. The dam on the 8th hole has been flushed of the surface weed due to the heavy rainfall. We will attempt to keep this dam weed free by doing weekly weed removal.
Greens
The greens will be cored on Monday 15th and will take approximately 3 days to complete the coring.
Please expect some temporary greens during this maintenance.
The reason we are coring the greens is to:
- Relieve surface compaction
- Increase surface drainage
- Promote deeper root growth
- Add amendments to the soil while the core holes are open
We have a narrow time frame to complete this task to ensure there is significant recovery before the Minnamurra open bowl in late September. Weather is critical during the coring and if it is raining then I will have to postpone the renovations until the weather is more favourable.
I apologize for any inconvenience during this process however it is necessary to help with the continual improvement of the greens.
Tees
There are some flat weeds present on some tees and these will be selectively sprayed in the coming weeks.
Fairways
A second application of the selective herbicide to control the wintergrass has been applied in early August. The effects of this application will be evident in approximately 3-4 weeks, just in time for spring
Calcium based products will applied to the fairways to start the program to reduce the concentration of sodium and bicarbonates in the soil and to improve the soil structure.
With the removal of the wintergrass from most of the fairways another disease has been evident. This disease is called winter fusarium and became noticeable after the heavy rain fall. The disease has probably gone un diagnosed and not treated in the past resulting in the deterioration of the kikuyu which would have only contributed to the increase in winter grass.
I now have a control program in place so that no more damage occurs to the Kikuyu from this disease.
Bunkers
Nearly all the bunkers received a full sand relocation from the back of the bunkers to the playing areas, mainly due to the major washouts during the heavy rainfall.
We have managed to screen several tonne of local sand that can be used to fill in some of the worst bunkers on the course and to try and achieve a minimal standard of sand to create consistency in all of the bunkers.
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