Summer's here?

Well the humidity might be, but the hot sun certainly hasn't arrived consistently yet, although the couple of hot days we have had are certainly a reminder of what is to come.  The constant wind of the past few weeks has seriously interrupted our spraying programs and the wet weather and humidity has seen a huge germination of weeds throughout the courses.  Most of these areas have been treated this week resulting in the brownish appearance of many areas, particularly the greens surrounds.  This is just a superficial burn and will grow out naturally in a few days.  I have actually had to resort to some hand removal of some weeds to try and keep on top of them.

The River greens have also had a large number of weeds appear but the wind has thus far prevented me from getting them treated.  I am hoping for good conditions tomorrow or Friday to get them sprayed in time for the Greg Norman tournament.  It is possible to use pre-emergent products on the greens to prevent weeds germinating but they generally have an adverse effect on root growth, so I generally steer clear of them.

I submitted the rainfall figures for November today and we had just 64mm which was a nice change from the 480mm in October.  It was recorded over 15 days though which has meant a lot of annoying rain for golfers and groundstaff alike.

The 8mm we received last night certainly wasn't annoying as it washed in the fertiliser that was put out on 8 of the West course fairways yesterday.  More fairways were fertilised on the West course today and as I write this there looks like some rain on the way from the north that will arrive just after the golfers finish for the day.

I am looking forward to the Course Information Session tomorrow at the Course Maintenance shed in Davey Street at 4.30pm DST, and hope to see a lot of interested Members there.