GOLF


around 5-6 inches. Occasionally, we will go with the half inch tines and put them down at 12 inches to shake them up, because there are times when you must break up that subsoil. We are fortunate now to have a contractor (MG Turfcare) come in with the Air2G2, which now takes away the need of going down so deep. We can fracture the soil at the base level with that and we don’t get the tractor marks and holes. It’s a great tool that should be used in conjunction with other aeration methods, at the correct times.”


Using a contractor, Richie likes to use the Imants Koro with scarifying units on the greens, going down to a depth of 20mm in


one pass to take a lot of organic matter out. “This has been really effective against the top-level thatch, which is something we are trying to reduce.”


I asked Richie if this doesn’t tend to disturb them quite a bit and make them look a bit iffy? “Yes, we were lucky that we did a summer renovation, and we are going to change over to a winter renovation instead; we are going to go in the back end of September this year, when we would normally go in at the beginning of August. We were able to turn the greens around after three weeks back to summer greens quality, but the questions come from golfers asking if we can do it at the end of the season. With


through the winter to keep them quite acidic and harsh on the moss.” “In summer, we use a 26-0-0 High N liquid feed from April to September. I don’t use any one brand, it comes down to price. Alongside this, we will use seaweed, iron products and Primo Maxx. Front and back we will use a micronised granule fertiliser at low rates, so we don’t get the speckling. In March, we will use ICL Greenmaster Pro-Lite cold start 11-5-5 and, in September, a 5-5-10 with iron at 20g/m2


, which has


warmer summers/autumns, and taking some advice from the STRI, we think we can do it at the end of September, and this will be followed with the verti-drain, overseeding with a traditional creeping bentgrass seed mixture and topdressing with sand. We will also overseed in the summer as well as that is the best time for the seed to take.” Using the results from the soil tests, Richie tries to follow a fertiliser programme as best they can but, with the unusual weather in 2018, this has seen some changes in inputs. “We have hit over 110kg of nitrogen on our greens this year which is a lot over what we would normally do; we tend to be around the 80kg mark a season. We are looking to top up the other deficiencies (phosphorous and potassium) in the back end to harden them up for winter and then we will use lawn sand at 16g/m2


The environment is a big part of what we do


now, from washdown, birds, bees and the flora


42 PC February/March 2019


“


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