A great week of weather with a few welcome showers earlier in the week although the ladies run of outs continued with some rain about during their shotgun on Tuesday.

The maintenance closure on the River course on Tuesday allowed us to get the fairways fertilised and then the slow follow up play after the ladies shotgun meant we got all but 2W fertilised on the West course.  In days gone by many members would wonder how I knew it was going to rain and time my application accordingly but with the new irrigation system that skill is now defunct.  As soon as the fairway is fertilised we are able to immediately run a cycle to wash the product in.  This achieves two main things, it gets the fertiliser prill off the surface and into the turf canopy and thus preventing damage from golf carts and it also means less burn on the leaf as there is less on the surface.  The photo below shows the type of wheel marking we would get previously from an application and what we got this week.

12W wheel burn a couple of years ago.

4W wheel burn this week.

As mentioned the new irrigation system showed it's worth with a precise application following the fertiliser to get it off the surface and then a follow up the night following to start the release.  We expect to get a response although the fairways are under growth regulation so there shouldn't be a surge.  The Kikuyu based fairways weren't fertilised as they are growing well enough and a change of formulation of the growth regulator has us struggling to get a rate that will control them.  5.6 tonne of fertiliser was put out at a rate of 200kg per hectare.  It is a custom blend that is produced to my specification which hasn't changed in 20 years and it works so well for us.  There is some upfront release and then we get up to 3 months of continual release to keep the fairways ticking over.

 

The sprinklers in action.

The white dots in the photo aren't golf balls but are foam drops that indicate driving runs to help with accurate application. 

The West greens renovation is due to happen on Monday November 17 and wouldn't you know it, a rain event has been predicted.  The long term forecaster I have mentioned before has nominated November 18 as the start of a prolonged wet season and he made that call months ago.  All the amateur sites are now almost unanimous with something brewing from November 17 so we will wait and see.