In my last blog I spoke about the difference between 2018 and 2019. I looked at the amount of hours we had been in a “dewy” situation. This is a fairly simple thing to work out and it uses the Dew point figure I’ve seen in many forecasts and never really understood properly. Since I…
Author: Glenn Kirby
Moisture: Dew v Rainfall – Part 1
Disease pressure is a great phrase that most experienced course managers can instantly identify with but is quite tricky to explain – but I’ll have a go using 2018 v 2019. Without question disease pressure during last Autumn was significantly higher than this Autumn. But what are the drivers behind fuzz acceleration? What were the…
Reading Nozzle Charts
Why are nozzle charts so frustratingly complex? They hold vital information for getting your sprayer set up correctly but they do a pretty good job of hiding in amongst a heap of unnecessary numbers. WHY WHY WHY???? Well, pretty simple really – nozzles are generally designed to be pretty generic so they can be mass…
Begin with Nozzle pressure
I know – it’s not normal practice to begin your calibration process with nozzle pressure but here’s why I think it’s so important. Bear with me on this one – You know how you get frustrated at times with those golfers who don’t understand the complexities of your job, when they mistreat your hard work…
River Flows – November / December
It’s been a while since I updated the river flow maps. The last one I did was September which was incredibly dry for most until the last week and it doesn’t feel like the rain has stopped since then. The beauty of these maps is they show how despite the whole of the UK being…
Know your areas
Whilst we’re in this wet period and ground conditions aren’t allowing you to get out on the course as much as you’d like – this is a useful exercise to do. Using Google Earth you can check the areas of your playing surfaces. Most courses have a pretty good idea of the area they are…
Keep up the Pressure
Whilst demonstrating the value of good sprayer set-up and particularly nozzle set-up last week, I had a quick look at the pressure gauge on one of the sprayers at the course I was at. I was a little surprised to how the different pressures were indicated on the dial. I suspect that if the manufacturer…
When will it get cold?
My last blog got me thinking – when is it normal to start seeing frosts. I’m fortunate enough to have access to some pretty snazzy weather models and one of them can pick out the historical data for predetermined weather criteria. So when have seen more than 4 hours of temperatures below one degree? Winchester…
First Frost and Microdochium Progress
We’re reaching that time of year when we start hoping for some decent frosts. A sustained period of cold weather will really help slow the progress of any Microdochium and it generally signals a period of drier weather too. Now assuming you’ve come through this Autumn with clean surfaces so far then cold weather is…
Dry September but Wet Golf Courses
Talking to turf managers at the moment it’s clear to see that despite having a dry summer they are having to manage some very wet courses. I don’t think this has surprised many turf managers but its has caught a few members by surprise who were playing on very dry and firm surfaces one week…