Update from the CourseThe rain over the past 24 hours has been a welcome change
from the hot, dry and windy days that we have been dealing with of late. Apparently, Monday was the hottest day ever
recorded in October breaking all existing heat records. We have had no luck at
all on the irrigation front with pump 2 still at the engineering shop and to
make our job that little bit more frustrating pump 1 ceased on Saturday night
during the greens and tees programme. Just another challenge for the
maintenance team to overcome, so believe me when I say this rain couldn’t have
come at a better time. A lot of questions about the yellowing off of the greens and
their current condition. Last Friday we did the second application of MSMA to
all greens and step cuts. MSMA or Monosodium Methyl Arsenate is a selective
herbicide registered for the eradication of blue couch from greens and tees.
With the forecast on Thursday being 33 degrees I decided to halt the spray
programme until the next day where the Bureau of Meteorology had the day’s
maximum temperature to reach a more pleasant 28 degrees. Unfortunately, the BOM
got it wrong (no surprise there) and we hit 32 degrees on the Friday resulting
in a phytotoxic leaf burn on the greens (the photo shows phytotoxic leaf burn from the application of MSMA on the 5th green). Nothing to panic about it’s all part
of herbicide applications and the tip burn will grow and mow out over the next
few days. The step cuts were more affected as they receive a double dose of
herbicide in areas as the green is sprayed first before an entire lap of the
step cut is sprayed. The greens despite their appearance are very healthy and
there’s a lot of clip coming off after each mow. They will hold their strength
and vigour right through to our renovation dates and should recover quickly. We have finally got the men’s first tees back under fully
automatic irrigation after yet another challenging battle. We ran a new lateral
water line underneath the cart path from off the mainline to feed this tee. The
old lateral line had unfortunately been made redundant during the construction of the new carpark. A couple of wire joins, a new lateral line and the 1st tee is back under fully automatic irrigation. | 
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