South East Girls and Golf Week

Cutting the 2nd green in the dark at 4.45am

For the past two weeks Ealing has hosted two big events. First up was the South East Girls Championship where girls from Kent, Sussex, Middlesex, Essex and Surrey battled it out for 3 days. Kent came out on top and reports back from all competitors was very positive. Next up was our second annual golf week. It started off with Invitation day and contained the Club Championship, Pro and Am-Am, Junior and Scratch Open and finished off with the Generation Bowl yesterday. Again the reports back from all those who played during the week was great.

A lot of hard work and hours has been put in by the Greenstaff over the last two weeks. Some very early starts were needed to get ahead of the golf and present the course for the days play. The weather in general was very kind and the only hicup was last weekend when we had some flooding. The course played very well. Green speeds were maintained at 12 feet for all of the events and went up to 13.5 feet for the Pro-Am.  All in all a very satifying period. It's always good to see the course perform at its best and we look forward to hosting future events soon.

Mid-Season Greens Renovations

After a busy few months we completed our mid-season greens renovations works this week. Once the Seniors Open was completed on Monday, the week started with a verti-cut Tuesday morning with a micro tine following behind. Unfortunately the weather wasn't kind to us on Tuesday and after heavy downpours, six greens were still to be completed mid-morning. Once the weather improved in the early evening the Greenstaff reconvened the renovation and completed the verti-cut operation and spiked five more greens. With the weather improving on Wednesday, the rest of the greens were micro-tined and 15 tonnes of sand was applied to all greens. A wetting agent was then applied to the greens and 10 tonnes of sand spread on the approaches. A tough couple of days.

Miro spiking with 8mm cluster tines

Many members ask why we do this work in the mid-playing season. There is one main reason for this and it is recovery. At this time of year getting the greens back in play very quick is important when you have a busy golfing diary. Because temperatures are in double figures night and day, growth can be boosted at this time of year. If you look at the picture below you will see the 9th green two days after the work was competed on Friday afternoon. That green was still stimping over 10feet and smoothness was 9 out of 10. Not bad considering two days previous we were 'digging the greens up' in some golfers eyes!

15 tonnes of sand applied

9th Green two days after

1st Hole Carry Extension

As the weather has got hot it has shown up some weak areas around the course in terms of dryness. When the irrigation system was installed in 2006, the design was based around greens,tees,fairways and approaches. This has meant that certain areas such as surrounds and walk off areas suffer when extreme hot weather comes our way. Every system designed on paper will never be fully acceptable when out on the field. Tweaking of the system has to take place to make sure it's functional for the golf course. Over the years we have been installing surround sprinklers and so far holes 3,8,9,12,14 and 18 have had them installed. We have done this all in house and helps walk off areas for the summer months.

This week we installed a extension to the 1st hole carry. Right in front of the 1st tee there was a slight weak area. It was only around 20metres long but would burnout and look poor right in front of the 1st tee. Steve our new Deputy got on with the job of bringing the existing pipework and cable back to the 1st tee and turning it towards the putting green. It took three days to complete and is now fully automatic so sits in with the rest of the sprinkler programmes. It will improve the turf quality in this area and make our 'first impressions' acceptable in the summer!

Poor turf quality in front of the 1st tee

Marking out the sprinkler positions

Trencher digs out the pipeline

Soak-a-hose watering the turf

Turf relaid

New sprinkler installed on the 8th walkway

Nice clean job

All finished in 3 days

Water Management At Ealing Golf Club

Miro hand watering any dry areas on the 5th green

At last we seem to have a summer that isn't raining and we have long glorious days, with some heat included too:) This is great for the golf course as it is busy with golfers but puts huge pressure on the water management side of things and especially greens moisture. Over the last decade we have invested in water management tools at Ealing. In 2006 the club invested nearly £300k on a new fully automatic watering system. Playing surfaces such as greens, tees and fairways had a system installed that would allow the greenstaff to maintain good playing surfaces during dry, hot periods. However, an irrigation system is a tool and needs to be managed correctly as misuse will have the opposite affect on playing surfaces. Along with this we have invested in scientific tools such as a weather station and portable moisture probe. These tools along with the irrigation system allows us to set up a water balance sheet so that when we have to use the automatic sprinklers, we water correctly so that plant uptake is maximised and wastage reduced.

If you look at the image above you will see our current water balance sheet. It is basically a profit and loss spreadsheet with ET (evpotranspiration) as the loss and irrigation/precipitation as the profit.You will notice two things. The first is the high moisture loss that we are currently experiencing and second, the amount (or lack of) rainfall for the month. You will also probably gauge that that when we irrigate we don't replace by 100% of the loss on that day. It is roughly around a 60% figure. The reason for this is that it can take around 16 hours to lose say 4.2mm of moisture that we lost yesterday, but to add back just 2mm, roughly 4 minutes by the pop up sprinklers. Completely different rates. So to get the moisture levels right it is where hand watering and a new technology called 'VWC' or volumetric water content (last column on the right) comes in to allow us to be in complete control.

VWC is a fairly new technology which came out around 10 years ago for the turf market. It measures electrical resistance between two probes and converts it in to a percentage reading giving you the water content for that area. Two years ago we invested in a portable soil moisture probe, which along with our water balance sheet allows us to be in total control of our moisture levels on the greens. When it doesn't rain of course!. During hot periods such as this, we go out and measure the VWC for each green and then adjusted the run times for the sprinklers accordantly. So today we measured all the greens and found some such as the 11th green were too wet and that green will not be watered tonight. Our bench mark figure for these clay based push up greens is around 30%. We find when we go below that figure the water repels and they can become hydrophobic. So with the current weather, when we are losing between 4 and 5mm of moisture per day, we set the default VWC at around 35% first thing in the morning. So by the end of the day they will lose around 4 to 5% VWC and come down to around that 30% mark. This means that during the afternoon (when historically they have dried out and crusted up), playability is not affected and they play as good then as they do first thing.

Modern valving head sprinklers

They have around a 20m throw and apply evenly across the surface

Weather station giving daily ET and rainfall figures

Soil moisture probe giving instant readings

Digging the greens up!

This week we have carried out some minor maintenance to the greens at Ealing. In the past this has been seen as 'digging the greens up' in some people eyes, but with today's techniques and machinery disturbance can be minimal. The week started on Monday with a light aeration which was followed with 5 tonnes of sand. A brush then followed behind dragging the sand in to the holes and once dried, Mitchel went out and vibro rolled the greens. The next day a wetting agent (which takes the surface tension out of water droplets) was applied and watered in. Today we have just done a speed and smoothness test to the second green and ball roll is 10 out of 10 and speed is 11 feet. So long gone are the days when you dig the greens up and putting performance is affected for weeks on end!

Spiking first thing Monday

Stan applying 5tonnes of sand

Sand on surface

Sand being brushed in to the holes

Green half brushed

Mitch vibro-rolling the greens

Wetting agent being watered in

Greens Friday morning

Smoothness 10/10 and speed 11

Captain's Day

2nd Hole

At this time of year the golfing diary is extremely busy and tournaments come thick and fast. Yesterday we hosted the annual London Irish charity event and tomorrow is Captain's day, which is always a highlight at any club. We feel the course has played very well this year and all areas of the course looked and played good. A lot of effort goes in by the Greenstaff and many long days are worked. For a big tournament we will increase the intensity slightly and do extras such as cut and roll greens (to increase speed) and mow fairways in the morning. It's always good to see the golf course at its peak and fortunately this year the weather has been kind to us too!

Fairways getting cut in the morning ahead of play

Growth Potential

2nd Green this morning.

At Ealing we always trying to improve and like most industries, turf maintenance has evolved and is evolving all the time. On the agronomy side, getting the right fertility programme in place is crucial for having healthy, but playability greens. Nitrogen is the main element applied to playing surfaces, but this nutrient is so hard to judge. Over apply and you end up with slow, thatchy greens. Under apply and turf lose can occur. For many years agronomists have talked about the 'magic line'. This is when you are in complete control of your grass growth and eliminate peaks and troughs. But how do you achieve this when so many variables are around such as the weather and temperature?

This year we have decided to 'tweak' the fertility programme slightly at EGC. The aim has been to get as close to that magic line as possible without affecting the agronomy side of the greens (and of course how they putt). In general there are four things that a grass plant will need to allow it to grow. Fertility, water, temperature and light all play their part. We can control fertility pretty well now with soluble Nitrogen applied instead of granular fertiliser. Then if it grows too well, suppressants such as trinexapac-ethyl will calm it down. Water can be monitored with a modern valving head water system, along a weather station and moisture probe to allow you to gauge the soil conditions. Light is a tough one. Especially on a Parkland course, your hands can be tied to a certain extent (unless you are Augusta and have artificial light!). The last one leaves temperature and over the season this dictates a huge amount of the potential of the plant. This is where a newish method called 'Growth Potential' comes in!

An american agronomist called Micah Woods has been writing about this for a while. http://www.files.asianturfgrass.com/201306_growth_potential.pdf It basically relates temperature to the potential of growth. But we know all this we hear the cries! How do we monitor and control it? He has set a threshold for cool season grasses such as ours at around 20C and anything above or below affects growth. So for instance if the average for July was 20C, then the grass has the potential to grow at its maximum rate. But if the temperature drops by say 8 degrees this could drop the potential by over half.

What does this mean for Ealing? Well by using this method it could allow us to control growth to as close to that 'magic line' as possible. We already have a modern water system and have a weather station and moisture probe. So we are in control of our moisture needs. We control Nitrogen inputs with external nutrient tests. Light is out of our hands at present. So that just leaves temperature. For this we implemented the GP system and at the start of the year we set up a spreadsheet. Depending on temperatures, we applied a certain amount of Nitrogen depending on what that spreadsheet told us. Straight away we could see that over the years at certain times (namely the spring), we have over applied this nutrient. This method has been going now for 5 months and the results so far have been interesting:
 

	Period	2012	2013
Nitrogen	Jan to May	91kg	31kg
Potassium	Jan to May	78Kg	23kg
Smoothness	May	9.1 out of 10	9.5 out of 10
Speed	May	9.4	11.7
Rainfall	May	38.8mm	49.8mm

These figures were taken until the end of May in both of those years. Straight away you can see that we have used around a third of Nitrogen and Potassium in 2013 (only nutrients applied to the greens) and smoothness and speed has increased. The reason why we put rainfall in there is that many would believe that May of last year was wetter and that's why speed and smoothness was down. But looking at those figures you can see that actually it was wetter this year, but speed rose to 11.7 feet from 9.4!

So our conclusions so far are very positive. We have used less fertiliser (as we had the coldest spring for 50 years), but our performance was better. It will be interesting to see how this runs over the season and we will report back at the end of the year. For now the signs are looking as good as the greens!