Out and About on South Essex Golf Course: August 2013

This week we have continued our routine treatments on the greens by spraying a second application of wetting agent and then a growth regulator mixed in with seaweed,soluble fertilisers and potassium.This will help combat any heat stress.There are signs on a few greens of summer disease issues which often apper about this time of year,anthacnose and superficial fairy ring,we will try to control them by cultural means rather than use fungicides.We have treated the greens which had silver moss on them using a knapsack and targeting the moss rather than spray the whole green,below the 2nd green vixen which was the worst infected is shown,the blue dye highlights the area sprayed and avoids any repeat application to that area

Honey from the course bee hives is available for sale at £5 a jar.There is a limited amount as it has been a difficult year for the honey bee,The cold spring slowed there activity down,and then one hive had a huge population death rate suffering from chronic bee paralysis caused by a virus,another had a drone laying queen as it had not been able to mate,So I will drop from 3 hive to 2 going into the winter.

The annual cutting and collecting of the Environmental rough is taking place around the course,this is to control the the ingress of scrub growth into these areas and keep the grassland habitat,remove the nutrient in the grass to reduce the grass vigor and encourage finer grass species which will enable better ball location and playability and appearance.This is a slow process taking a number of years,we are now seeing less weed invasion,and some areas are not as vigerous as they used to be so we are on the right track.