The creation of a bespoke over-seeding mixture has enabled the greenkeeping team at Dunblane New Golf Club to improve the uniformity and aesthetics of the club’s fairways and tees, with a carefully chosen seed formula ensuring new grass growth blends seamlessly with the course’s existing swards.
Scott Davidson, head greenkeeper at Cathcart Castle Golf Club to the south of Glasgow, has reinstated a redundant green on his club’s course, with the renovated space acting as a trial site for the latest generation of creeping bentgrasses. By growing a small selection of cultivars under real world conditions, he hopes to determine whether or not creeping bents are a viable option for greenkeepers in the west of Scotland and, if so, whether these species can be managed with a reduced reliance on fungicides.
The following disease management webinars were recorded at the Wentworth Club in Surrey where Germinal hosted a group of 100 greenkeepers from across the UK to learn more about how the use of 007 DSB Creeping Bentgrass has improved the speed, playability and consistency of the greens on the famous West Course
Germinal has announced that it has gained exclusive UK, Ireland and European distribution rights for new browntop bentgrass cultivar, Musket, and that the new variety will be included in the company’s range of greens-specific seed mixtures in 2020.
Greenkeepers, groundsmen and amenity space managers should apply more than just nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to their green areas this autumn, with magnesium and iron essential to maintaining healthy, disease free grass swards throughout the winter.
At Moor Park Golf Club in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, the club’s mission is to be recognised as one of the top private members’ establishments in London and the Home counties. For the 23-strong greenkeeping team this means constantly improving the club’s 36-holes and various practice areas.
For the Wildernesse Club near Sevenoaks in Kent, two key competitions in June – the Club Captain’s Prize and a regional qualifying tournament for The Open – provide the focus for greenkeeping efforts each year.
Following complaints from residents on a new housing development in Basingstoke about the poor appearance of a strip of land separating their homes from a public open space, landscaping and specialist grounds maintenance contractor, The Grounds Care Group, has recently been appointed to remediate the offending area by establishing a colourful strip of wildflowers.
When the first generation of commercial creeping bentgrasses (Agrostis stolonifera) was introduced to the UK in the 1970s, it was quickly decided that they were only suitable for golf courses with adequate budget, manpower and machinery to meet the species’ high maintenance requirements.
