Start of week 10

Well its week 10 already, we got through open day with no rain and ladies have there interclub today and all holes are open so over all not too bad.

These last few weeks we have been concentrating on keeping the turf growing as fast as possible as we really want to get the muddy patches to grow in before the growing season stops. Our biggest problem is that every time we get any rain it just gets very slippery, and this then becomes a safety problem for machinery and carts.
and we have had several slips in the most unlikely places, so it will be good to get to the situation where the turf has grown over and this is no longer a problem.

We got a verti-cut in on the greens last week, and hope to get one in today as well, we will have to be on top of our game this winter as with the flood and salt water effects  on the turf we were unable to scarrify the greens this February renovation, thus while we can  verti-cut with the right conditions we will take every opportunity to get away with it now because  in early spring the turf will be very tight and stressed similar to a plant that is pot bound. thus the more we verti-cut now the more thatch we take out, to hopefully get us through to our major renovation in October.

The other major problem we face is the weeds in the green, and here is the dilemma, the root system is still recovering and not even back to its appropriate length and health , winter and cooler nights are fast approaching which naturally cause the root system to retreat to a fair degree and if we apply spray to control the weeds it has a root pruning effect on the turf and can the turf cope with this added stress and recover quickly enough to be able to go into winter in good shape.... that is the million dollar question or as Shakespeare would put it "to spray or not to spray"

So the safest option is to spot spray the bigger weeds and with the colder weather most on the weeds will disappear as they overwinter, and we will get them coming out in spring.

Well to next time keep swinging  Pete