After the craziness of the Mick Fanning day which this year leaked well into Saturday it was nice to get a break away, albeit in Brisbane, for the annual sportsturf conference.  This year we again joined with Golf Management Australia (golf club managers) for a combined effort and at last count there were over 700 registered delegates for the event with another 150 day delegates who mainly come to visit the extensive trade show.

Plenary sessions with the GMA included a lot of personal development and mental health awareness sessions although even when we broke away for the Supers to concentrate on all matters turf, there were many GM's attending these.  As one of the more senior attendees I get the chance to chair some sessions and two of those were really good and it gives you one on one time with the presenters.  One of which was Dr Jay McCurdy from Mississippi University where his specialty is warm season grasses (couchgrass) and in particular weed control.  I am sure I have said it before but to get one on one personal time with someone with that type of experience is priceless.  I discussed our Poa annua resistance problems and he gave me a couple of different options with some chemicals I haven't used before.

One of the other sessions I chaired was Automation in Turf Management which was presented by Erwan Le Cocq from Winston Golf in Germany which is one of the highest ranked courses in Germany where all range of automation is utilised.  The use of automated (robotic) mowers was the primary topic and there is no doubt it is the way of the future.  The initial cost is the prohibitive part but savings in staff and fuel eventually offset this.  His robots predominantly mow fairways and intermediate roughs and despite some issues they do an amazing job.  One of the biggest issues is vandalism while they are working overnight but theft is not a problem (although it has happened) as the robots are all GPS equipped so it's just a matter of knocking on someones door to get him back!!  One of the other issues is irrigation scheduling as they will sense that as rain and stop working and also their ability to mow warm season thatchy couch fairways like CTHGC is up for discussion.  The mowers are available in Australia so some investigation will commence.

The irrigation installation continued and 6R is now complete.  A start was made on 7R on Friday and when 7R is finished we will go back to 3R green as advised last week.