Dear Members, Happy New Year. Would you believe 6 months of my tenure here at Gisborne has passed already. I believe this time has been very productive, though we still have much to achieve and implement over the coming seasons.

There are exciting times ahead for our Agronomy Team and the Club with the programs and practices we intend to implement, putting Gisborne Golf Club’s surfaces where they deserve to be. We have seen the arrival of some more summer like conditions over the last few weeks, which has finally raised soil temperatures enough to fire up our warm season grass varieties on course.

Now the real work begins in starting to manipulate that growth to tighten up our surfaces for better playing conditions this season and beyond. This will allow us to move in to winter with a cleaner turf sward with less weed infestation. This will be achieved by implementing our PGR (plant growth regulators) program which will be applied on a GDD (growing degree days) basis. In conjunction with our post and pre-emergent herbicide programs I am very confident we will go into winter in a very healthy state.

Our Greens have been performing well on a full preventative fungicide program which has been put to the test over the past month with hot dry temperatures followed by warm humid temperatures – a very unfriendly combination for turf grass. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to implement our full grooming program which would increase our surface smoothness even further.

This has mostly been due the inclement weather this season. Over the next 6 weeks we will be brushing greens weekly to increase surface density. We will also verti drain 6 greens every week on a rotating basis to avoid adversely affecting playing conditions and this is to keep our root health, gas exchange and in-filtration over the coming months as we have a very heavy golf schedule at present. The practice putting green suffered some small heat stress over the past few weeks but is on the mend already.

This was purely dry patch. After further investigation the root cause is that out our putting green has two different profiles. That is, the sand depth is not consistent across the green. The side with the deeper sand profile has a healthier root system which in essence means it can source more water, more nutrients and stay healthier. A simple management program has now been put in place to ensure we maintain adequate moisture to the side with the lower sand profile.

We are seeing some bounce back of the weed Dichondra spp. in our greens surface. This was expected and will be controlled when our temperature window suits, as a safety measure for our bent grass. Some of the chemistry required can be harmful in warmer conditions and with our schedule we cannot afford to weaken our turf sward. Our teeing grounds have improved although l am still unhappy with them.

We are seeing broadleaf weed bounce back (expected) and a three-year program is required to reach our desired standard. 80% require irrigation upgrades and just time to thicken up. We will continue to overseed and spray over the remainder of the season as we continually evolve our program. As you all would have noticed over the past two months, we have been completing plenty of maintenance to our irrigation system. 130 hours since October to be exact. This is 18% of our total man hours, second behind greens which have taken up 27% of total man hours. This has been very successful and as I type this report we have only two non-working irrigation satellite boxes and we are waiting parts ex use for these.

Our communication issues have been resolved along with our power delivery issue. Our main issue is old hydraulic valves within our satellite boxes which hold pressure on the sprinkler head itself, if these leak the head will not shut off correctly. The leak on the 4th tee is an issue which will be rectified in January, we need to dig up the path to completely relocate the valve which needs replacing.

The 13th tee has had a multitude of issues over the past few seasons I’m told. We are now on the last repair (having found two issues already) but now it is in the satellite box which has a leaking valve which is causing the head to leak even when the mains water to this tee is turned off. Our team are well aware of the high amount of weed infestation in our outer rough areas, they are absolutely a priority for us but obviously that priority is put behind greens, tees, fairways and first cut rough. All of these have a multitude of applications required when weather conditions permit. Please don’t view this as an excuse but keep in mind we will not be able to be on top of everything in one season.

Weather conditions have hampered all of our spraying applications over the past two months and l am behind where we would like to be on a few applications on all surfaces, unfortunately this is the game and the law. We must stick inside the DELTA-T (https://www.cropsmart.com.au/using-delta-t-for-assessing-spray-conditions/ )and directions of use instructions for chemicals. Our machinery is performing well, and a thank you to committee and members for the new greens and fairway mower purchases. These have definitely assisted us over the past few months. “COVID has affected the delivery of goods in almost every area and the delivery of machinery parts is no different. This has led to lengthy delays in our ability to maintain our machinery in a timely manner”.

You may have noticed some different cutting on the fairways – for example the 11th – the cutting is in a circular motion and at a lower height to promote lateral growth which will result in the smoothest possible surface – what does this mean for you? Your ball will go further – that extra bounce counts! Overall, as a team, we are happy with the progress we have made. Not essentially happy with the weekly presentation of the course as out of 6 months we have only had two complete weeks where the weather, staff or machinery has not had an adverse impact on our ability to present the course to the level we would like, so we are looking forward to the quality product we can produce in 2022. Regards, Your Superintendent.

*I have attempted to spray the fairways for black beetle Thursday but weather has hampered this so hopefully early next week will present an apportunity

 *Next week, in regards to fairway mowing- we will continue to circle cut a few more fairways  5,7,8,10. 

We are doing this to smooth out these surfaces and for the likes of 7 to encourage lateral growth into the bare patches. We are cutting out 8mm then we allow the turf to regrow to 14mm which is our normal cutting height this season.

Your Superintendent

Dylan Knight

Gisborne Golf Club

 

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