Last year we implemented a greens turf nursery at EGC. It has been urgently needed over the years as repairs has had to be taken from the putting green in the past, which doesn't look good visually. However, the way we constructed it was unconventional (which is par for the course here:) The traditional method of constructing a green in the UK has been to turf with a fescue/bent sod. The problem here is two fold. Firstly this type of sod can reject the soil and the grasses that you put down don't always match up with what's out on the golf course. Which for the vast majority of courses in the UK is Poa Annua Reptans. However, here lies the problem. Currently you cannot buy Poa Anuua Reptans in seed form or turf here in England. So what do we do? Do we just go with the conventional method and turf or seed with fescue or bent and hope for the best? Or do we think outside the box and try something different? You know us. The latter won!
So last year we made the decision to hollow core the greens in the autumn, but instead of throwing the cores away, we would use them as a seedbed for our new green. Perfect for us as our main greens are Poa Annua Reptans and it is a method that has been used in the states for years, but not so common over here. Below is a slideshow of the process which we followed. Basically we cored the greens and collected, spread these cores over our new area, rolled them out level and waited for germination. At first nothing happened, but very quickly after some feed and sand, new seeds came to life. We then put this green in with the collar programme as the height of cut here is 6mm for last years playing season. It came along very well and coverage was good from April onwards. During this autumn we then started cutting it in with the greens programme and now looks great!
From next season onwards all repairs needed to be made to the main greens will be taken from this nursery. An investment definitely worth doing.
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