Greens update

Members will have noticed the small pock marks/bare areas present in the greens.  These are due to the die back of the grass species Poa annua during the recent dry spell.  We dried the greens out deliberately to achieve this but the exceptionally hot weather resulted in an abrupt loss of Poa plants, whilst we would have preferred a more gradual die back.  In the long term the loss of Poa is, however, essential for maintaining our green quality.

We aim to keep the percentage of Poa annua in the greens as low as possible as it is the fine Fescue and Bent grasses that give us the highest quality and most consistent putting surfaces.  Our entire maintenance programme is formed around encouraging the finer grasses and discouraging Poa annua.  Everything from height of cut and fertiliser programme to aeration has an impact but moisture levels in the soil strongly influence the ability of Poa annua to get established and survive in our greens. 

The summer of 2012 was very wet so we had no opportunities to undertake our usual annual exercise of drying out the greens and putting the Poa annua under stress.  Consequently we came into 2013 with a higher than normal percentage of Poa in the greens and the very cold weather from March to May this year gave the Poa a further opportunity to spread with little competition from the slower growing fescue.  With more Poa present the evidence of the die back that we have achieved is therefore much more visible this year.

The importance of keeping a low percentage of Poa in the greens can’t be overemphasised.  As long as we have just a few per cent Poa, we can be quite aggressive in the measures we take to keep it from increasing.  With an increased percentage it is more difficult to remove as the impact on greens quality is greater as we are currently experiencing.  Keeping Fescue dominated greens with a very low percentage of Poa is fundamental to maintaining high quality putting surfaces all year round.

We will promote more grass growth than usual over the next couple of weeks and top dress again to fill in the gaps as quickly as possible. 

Our usual annual over seeding of greens is programmed for the week starting Monday 21^st August.  We will hollow core followed by top dressing and over seeding.  The seed we are using is pure Fescue and the modern cultivars have far superior performance to the old varieties present in our greens.