Another beautiful week of weather and lots and lots of golf.  I mentioned last week about a couple of signs of spring arriving and this week saw another sign that I look for and that is a Jacaranda tree that I pass regularly has started to flower.  I checked last years date and it was identical so we are possibly about the same as last year.  I know in the USA Superintendents are very big on aligning their maintenance programmes around what is happening elsewhere in nature and I have tried a bit myself over time, hence watching the flowering patterns of some plants.  The odd thing about that is that we have a Jacaranda in our front yard less than 200 metres from the aforementioned one and it is always at least four weeks behind.

As mentioned a few posts back we bought a temporary green into play on 1R this week while we prepare for the removal of the foreign grass invasion into the greens surface.  This is the first of potentially three applications to ensure that we get a kill.  We need to close the green to play to prevent the chemical being moved on to the greens surface by foot traffic and the first application is the most important and done at the highest rate while all the grass is actively growing.    The sprayed out areas will be cored and then the green will be renovated and the renovated material will be placed in the cored areas of the dead zones to re-generate and cover in.  This will be done on Wednesday October 14 and the temporary green will be in play for at least four weeks while the turf establishes.  The lower photo shows an area on the bottom left of the collar that was sprayed out where we will trial a different collar grass to see if it is less invasive than the normal Couchgrass we use.

Sprayed area on 1R green.

Spray job finished.

 

The West course will be closed from 7am on Monday for two days which will allow us to do a mini renovation on the greens.  It is planned to solid tine aerate the greens at least three times over the two days to allow for some very important air exchange and also to help soften the surface which can happen following a aeration program.  It's a process that we just don't have time to do while working around play and is normally done on a rainy day when no one is playing.  While the West is closed we will take the opportunity to renovate the West course tees as well. 

And while we bask in the sun up here relatively free from Covid restrictions spare a thought for Victorians.  This is the main street in Ballarat today!!  Golf is still allowed in regional Victoria and apparently there were still some players out today!!