In the past few years a program of couch removal in collars commenced to try and reduce the spread of couch within our greens and collars. It has been relatively successful to date with 8, 13, 15 and 16 East and 7, 8, 14, 15 and 16 West completed. With Santa Ana Couch having such an aggressive growth rate through the warmer months we face a never-ending battle, our aim is to turn over all collars as quickly as possible so smaller scale maintenance of these areas is all that is required. A number of different techniques will be used over the coming years to slow the encroachment into the completed greens.
Seeding our nursery on the 15th West was carried out a month ago with the seed germinating only days after being put down. From seeding to playability, 100 days is normally a realistic target although seeding Bentgrass to harvest can be a much longer time frame as we wait for the turf to mature and root structure to form well enough to be able to hold together when being picked up in rolls or blocks. Maturity for sodding may not be gained for a long period of time which slows our process of couch removal, this puts us behind in future works and also the minor maintenance works that must continue on the already completed greens. With this in mind we have now began to build a new nursery on the 16th East, on what used to be footy parks property we now have another 1200sqm of area to seed with Bentgrass which when completed will give us the ability to rotate between the two and speed up our processes.
On average 60 to 100 ton of fill is removed from each collar after sodding off the turf, this process has all been done manually by our groundstaff. Recent collars completed have seen depths vary at times due to the amount/depth of couch roots that have been discovered once started. This method has proven to be less effective with minor areas of couch already having emerged and needing to be removed.
Two weeks ago, we commenced the construction of a new nursery on the northern boundary which will increase our A1/A4 bentgrass nursery area by another 1200sqm. The ability to utilize this turf on a rotational basis with our other nursery will be the key to a faster change over period of our older collars. This amount of area will also enable us when the time comes to be able to begin to resurface complete greens with enough area between both sites to be able to cover as many as three greens if needed. Over the coming 6-8 weeks this area will be irrigated, sand imported, laser levelled and finally seeded. Our nursery on the 15th West has recently been seeded and will hopefully be ready for harvest mind next year with the new nursery hopefully ready for harvest in Autumn 2019.
Rowan Daymond
Course Superintendent