Key Tasks for March
General Maintenance
Any tree works must be undertaken by qualified, trained personnel. If your staff are not suitably qualified in tree surgery and/or operating chainsaw machinery, you must employ specialist contractors to carry out these works. It is often best to complete tree and woodland works before the trees and woodland begin to flourish with growth at the end of March.
High winds can often cause structure and tree damage. It is imperative to inspect, record and make the site safe. Any structure or tree debris that has fallen down and can be considered a hazard must be fenced off or removed in the interests of public safety.
Continue to brush/switch greens and tees daily to remove moisture from the grass surface, stopping the spread of disease and facilitating an improved quality of cut on the dry grass.
Mowing frequencies will vary from daily to twice weekly operations dependant on the growth of the grass and the standards set by the course manager.
Mowing heights may vary depending on local conditions, type of course, course expectations, sward type and mower type. The mowing heights are a guide, and will be subject to local weather conditions, but remember not to remove more than 1/3 of total grass height in each cut. The less stress that is placed on the grass at this vital time the better the results further on into the coming season.
Greens:- Mowing height should be maintained at around 6-8mm.
Tees:- Mowing height should be maintained at around 10-15mm.
Banks:- Mowing height should be maintained at 22-30mm
Fairways:- Mowing height should be maintained at around 15-25mm.
Rough, semi rough grass areas:- Mow and tidy up these areas. Reduce build up of clippings by cutting little and often with a rotary or flail. Mowing height will depend on type of course and the standard of play required. Mowing height of cut during the winter between 50-100mm.
Changing of holes should be carried out regularly, however frequency will be dependant on a number of factors, green size, green construction, tournaments, amount of play and condition of the green. During wet periods it is likely the hole will wear more quickly, resulting in a crowning affect and surface wear. This wear is more apparent if the green has thatch problems. The hole will tend to wear quickly and form a depression caused by the placement of the golfers' feet. You may be looking to change the hole positions more than three times per week during wet periods.
Aeration of greens, tees and fairways is ongoing when conditions allow. A wide range of solid, hollow or slit aerators are put to use on the playing surfaces. It is essential to keep the greens aerated to maintain air and gas exchange, and to alleviate compaction.
Soil temperatures should and will begin to rise towards the end of March, enabling the grass plant to make use of any fertilisers being applied. The grass plant's transpiration/respiration rates need to be active to initiate movement of soluble solutions from the soil into and through the plant's tissue.
Bunkers and Paths
This will help to avoid the 'plugged lie' syndrome in bunkers. Since growth around bunkers is likely to be sparse, the removal of excess sand is essential. A back pack blower is ideal for this purpose. Weak areas can be fertilised and where possible, a sufficient length of grass can be left on the bank or bunker face, especially on south facing slopes. Where renovation has taken place earlier in the winter, such bunkers should almost be ready for being brought back into play.
Paths: Once the main work to greens, tees and surrounds etc are complete and following bunker edging and cleaning, paths are likely to be next in the list of priorities for pre-season renovation. Once any holes have been filled and any debris scraped clear or removed, then a light path dressing of the appropriate material should be applied, possibly via a belt dresser type hopper.
Freshly re-surfaced paths can give an enhanced aesthetic appearance to the course and a good practice is to treat and apply on a regular basis as opposed to a full scale and costly renovation. Where path ends have become worn, they should be treated as per green surrounds and given protection from wear as much as possible. If re-turfing has to be carried out, then top dress quite heavily with a compost mix to prevent the turf from drying out.
Course Accessories: This is the last month for these to be cleaned, repaired, re-painted and ready for changing in time for the start of the new season. Any items such as flag pins, hole cups, bunker rakes and so on that are required need to be ordered well in advance to prevent any undue delays. Hazard markers are often painted 'in situ', especially if there are numerous ditches or water features present on the course. Wet days are ideal for internal painting and then storing on some form of racking system.
Spring Renovations
Recently, many Course Managers prefer to carry out solid tining or coring work with 10mm tine sizes in March and then follow-up with micro-coring in April.
The downside, however, is that it is more difficult to fill the smaller tine holes with sand, especially when surface conditions are more likely to be moist.The larger 13mm coring operation can then be left until August when conditions are usually ideal for such work and a much faster recovery ensues.
Attempting to deep scarify in March for thatch removal is fraught with potential problems as well as golfer annoyance, so best to avoid if possible.
Prior to any light scarifying, coring or tining work, the greens should be given a spring start-up feed or tonic, but just enough to encourage growth and recovery.
Products containing around 3 to 4% Nitrogen and a higher amount of sulphate of Iron are often popular, especially if moss 'discouragement' is required. A main pre-season or base feed, usually with a granular product would then be applied in April.
Top dressing will quickly follow the chosen cultural practice, with as much as 1 ton per green of dressing applied; this depending on the size of the green and whether or not core or deep tine holes need to be filled.
Over-seeding should be held back for a few weeks until these current cold temperatures are out of the way.
The temptation to reduce mowing height should be left until the greens have 'settled-down' and there is clear evidence of recovery, therefore the HOC should remain at around 4.5 to 5mm for as long as possible.
Teeing areas should be fertilised, tined, dressed and over-seeded. Where separate winter teeing areas are in play then any renovation work should be undertaken once they are no longer in use, which for most will be April.
Similar to greens, tee mowing height should remain at a higher height until growth commences and new seedlings have germinated. Any over-seeding that takes place will have a better chance of success if top dressed afterwards and mowing height is not lowered. If 'unused' tees are showing high levels of moss, then treat with an appropriate product prior to scarifying work late in the month. It usually takes about two weeks for any product to weaken the moss sufficiently.
Surrounds:- hopefully, towards the end of the month, there should be signs of recovery from winter wear. Heavily 'trafficked' areas will be the last to recover and, where this is the case, such areas should be renovated similar to tees. For many courses, this may require tining, top dressing and over-seeding small areas where grass cover is weak.
Green surrounds can be fertilised late in the month if required and conditions are favourable. Too often, ground conditions can dry out fairly quickly if winds are in an easterly direction and such applications should be held in abeyance until warmer and moisture conditions prevail.
Fairways:- This is generally the last month that deep tining work can be carried out before the season gets underway.
At the time of writing, the fast moving current of air which races high above us, known as the jet stream, is sitting lower than would be expected. As a result, the British Isles lie above its path rather than their typical position above. Consequently, this allows cold arctic air to move in from the north and east, bringing with it low temperatures. The meteorologists estimate that this pattern of weather is likely to extend into the middle of March.
Despite all the modern methods we are able to employ to regulate grass plant growth, the one thing we cannot control is the temperature. This means then tricky times for turf managers who would have been hoping for warmer air to raise soil temperatures and, in turn, stimulate recovery growth after the long winter. The good news, of course, is that disease pressure is likely to be low.
Nutrition
Managers across all disciplines will be under pressure when it comes to members and players expectation of Spring. Forcing growth in such conditions, however, is simply not feasible nor sensible. The plant and soil biology know what they need and no amount of fertiliser will force them to respond when they are not ready and warm enough.
The onset of colder weather is, of course, often accompanied by sunshine, which will provide two benefits on areas which receive direct sunlight.
Firstly, photosynthesis and, secondly, localised warming. Plants will use the combination of solar energy and localised warming from the sunlight to produce sugars and start metabolic function. However, the problem with cool air at this time of the year is two fold:
- Warming and photosynthesis happen in short lived concentrated blocks of time.
- Cold night-time temperatures mean the daily base line soil temperature drops as the soil does not build up any warming momentum.
The result is patchy and inconsistent growth. A useful analogy is to think of it rather like a cyclist trying to get up to sprinting speed as quickly as possible, when every tenth rotation of the pedals his foot slips off.
In relation to inputs, it is a time to concentrate on maximising the windows when the plant and soil biology is active, as well as assisting the plant to withstand desiccation and drought from cold winds. The means to do that is with little and often liquid or soluble applications aimed at the leaf, with the intention of maximising rapid uptake and assimilation. Tools to achieve in this outcome are:
Nitrate nitrogen – research shows it is absorbed into the leaf over 48 hours where it then resides in the spaces between cells ready and waiting to be assimilated when the plant requests it.
Humic Substances – in particular, micronised formulations containing a percentage of Fulvic Acid which acts to pull fertilisers into the plant more efficiently.
Carbon – the foundation energy source of plant and soil life; providing carbon increases utilisation efficiency of fertilisers and props up the soil food web.
Seaweed – plant stress hormones prime the plant by eliciting metabolic functions which allow it to better withstand environmental (abiotic) and pathogenic (biotic) stress.
Calcium – strengthens cell walls, creating a more resilient plant.
Micro nutrients – anyone looking to make informed decisions on their soil health will have had a full chemical analysis undertaken. Foliar applications of deficient nutrients in the tank mix will allow you to overcome a lack of supply of the soil, and provide the plant with everything it needs to maximise those concentrated blocks of light energy and warmth.
Two other important factors with regards to nutrition in a cold dry spring are:
Patience – understand what the plant needs and when; don’t be tempted to plough in nutrient that cannot be consumed. It will either leach into water courses or sit, slowly degrading, forcing a disease susceptible and mower demanding flush when conditions turn warm and wet.
Preparation – get a conventional release Ammonium sulphate based granular fertiliser on the shelf, ready to go down as soon as you see and hear the forecasters confidently predicting a consistent upturn in temperatures and available moisture. Preferably one containing a little calcium for cell division and magnesium for chlorophyll production.
Moss
March is an excellent time to treat moss; however, beware too much sulphate of iron if desiccating winds are prevalent, and most certainly hold back scarifying until strong consistent grass growth is there to repair the sward.
Aeration
As areas dry out from the winter, getting on the ground with machinery and aerating will be possible. Little and often in multiple different ways is a good mantra, but beware desiccating winds leading to too much drying of the surface; especially on poa annua dominated swards
Surfactants
March is the time to start applying polymer wetting agents, such that you have enough time for the chemistry to build up in the soil ahead of summer. Prevention is absolutely better than cure when it comes to dry patch, and planning and preparation now prevents poor surfaces later in the year.
Fairy rings
March is a good time to prevent the effects from type two fair rings in the summer. A combination of aeration, surfactants and azoxystrobin fungicide will allow water and active ingredient to move into hydrophobic regions occupied by the fungal mycelium.
One of the biggest assetts of any golf club is its machinery and equipment; it is important you look after it and ensure it gets serviced and repaired on a regular basis. With spring around the corner, your main mowing machines are going to be working overtime; make sure they are up to the task.
Investing in good storage and wash down facilities is essential for the welfare of machinery.
Keep records of hours of use and take photographs of equipment for referencing.
Specialist Courses:
Basic Management & Maintenance of Ponds and Wetland Areas
The Maintenance, History and Ecological Principles of Wildflower Meadows
Some of the other courses available are:
Chainsaws - CS30 and CS31
H&S Refresher Training on Combined Turf Care Equipment; Tractors and Trailers; All Mowers (Ride-on and Pedestrian)
Machinery Courses on ATVs; Tractors: Brushcutters/Strimmers; Mowers (ride-on and Pedestrian)
Pesticide Application (PA courses)
Stem Injection of Invasive Species (Japanese Knotweed etc.)
Basic Trees Survey and Inspection
Visit our Grounds Training website where you will find more details about all the courses, or you can email Carol Smith for information.
Inspect, check and empty all litter bins
Keep stock of all materials
Tidy mess rooms and sheds
Inspect drainage outfalls, channels and ditches. Ensure that they are working.
Inspect all water features on the course, cleaning out any unwanted debris and litter.
Recent stormy wet weather will have contributed a lot of surface water into drains, ditches and water courses. However, when large amounts of water are running into these outlets in a short period of time, it can often result in flooding parts of the course which may in turn make the course unplayable.
Check all ditches and brooks, make sure the water is running easily, remove any debris that may affect the flow of the streams, brooks or ditches.