I think I might have been the only person smiling at the club today once the rain set in.  You couldn't have scripted a better week for the River greens renovation with perfectly dry sunny and windy conditions on Monday and Tuesday followed up with the same for some backup work on Thursday and then the rain started just as we washed down the fertiliser spreaders.  Only 5mm overnight and then backed up with 15 millimetres until 5:00 today which should settle the sand down into the profile and also a nice water in on the fertiliser that we got onto the greens and tees on the River course.  One of the best results we have had on a renovation especially over the past four years when it has rained virtually every time during the operation. 

On the Poa annua front we have now had exceptional success on the West practice green and 5 and 6W greens.  Some of the Poa  in the fairways is actually dying out naturally which is the first time that has happened over the past three summers as we have had so much rain that it has been able to survive throughout summer.  The fact that it fails so quickly is one of the reasons we can't afford to have it as any sort of a dominant grass. The photo below shows some of the fairway Poa dying out on 4 R fairway.

Poa ''melting'' out on 4R fairway.

Oh and the rain won't do the rest of the courses any harm either as we were really starting to dry out with the telltale signs of the drain line trenches being prominent and the water table dropping enough for the small dam on the corner of 5W to dry up earlier this week.

 

 

A very big thank you to the membership at last nights AGM who approved the expenditure for the full replacement of the irrigation system.  The proposal is in the final stages of tender evaluation and a decision is hoped to be made very soon with regards to the successful tender.  Works will hopefully commence in the new year.  Being 36 holes it is one of the biggest installations on a golf course and a large amount of stock needs to be purchased.  More than 25km of pipe and 1600 sprinklers will form part of the job.  So the countdown to start day begins.  More about scheduling and order of works will be advised following a planning meeting with the successful bid.

River greens renovations kick off next week and just as much as players don't like them neither do my staff as they indicate long days and a lot of work to get through in a limited time.  The forecast looks good which will make a change from the last couple of years when showers and storms have interrupted the process.  Dry conditions give us the best result and the wind forecast looks like that will be the case.  At this stage the greens will be scarified (aka ''tram lines'') to a depth of 5mm and then de-thatched to a depth of 3mm.  They will then be hollow tine aerated with 10mm holes, have amendments / fertiliser applied and then heavily sanded to fill the holes and restore the surface.  The greens are the priority for the works but if we get a good run then the tees may be aerated and scarified as well.

Topdressing sand arriving for the renovation.

And just on the sand we had to source a new supply after the closure of our previous sand supplier Action Sands at Chinderah due to government regulations making their business operation untenable.  Sand supply for the sportsturf industry in SE Queensland is challenging at present as the sand companies are supplying so much to the construction industry whose specifications are much looser than the requirements for fine turf.  Action supplied all the sand for the West greens re-construction which started way back in October 2016 for the back nine so the greens are turning seven.  How time flies?

 

 

One good news story for the week is that the Poa annua is still dying in greens 5 and 6W.  Another application this week has set the Poa back even further although there are still some plants that haven't had as good a kill.  The disappointing story for the week was the storm and rain that rolled through last Saturday morning for round one of the club championships.  It's severely interrupted our preparations for the round with more rain falling than we have had for months and meant we could only get a couple of greens mown or rolled.  The wind and constant showers made for a fairly unpleasant day on the golf course no doubt.  Fortunately this week we have had a better run with the weather although the wind has the place pretty messy out there with a lot of leaves in bunkers which will be hard to move given we can’t operate blowers that early on a Saturday morning.

I have had a couple of members ask me about the ploughing for the installation of the irrigation system I mentioned the other week and just how much damage will there be from the installation.  The term ploughing relates to the operation being similar to a drainage method known as mole ploughing but surface disruption is minimal.  The top photo below shows an irrigation line ‘’ploughed’’ across a fairway with the bottom arrow indicating where the pipe has been ‘’ploughed in’’ and the top arrow indicating some minor tyre mark damage.  The bottom photo shows the only real excavation on playing areas will be where the sprinklers themselves are installed.  Mainlines will generally be located down the side of fairways and they will be installed in an open trench dug by either a ditchwitch type of machine or a small excavator.  Given we are installing over the top of the existing irrigation system there will be some more excavation required when we encounter existing underground services that are still required, particularly power. 

Minimal damage.

Sprinkler location circled.

The photo below shows the extent of damage when the ploughing installation has been done on bare ground with no turf which probably wonudn't happen here but it's a good indication of how little damage is done.