Grass Clippings – February 2024
Storm Season
This winter has been an extraordinarily wet one, with rainfall figures recorded on site now breaking records for the calendar year. The storm season has also been long and demanding. Last year’s storm season, which ran from September 2022 to August 2023 only went as far as the letter B, with Storm Betty in August. This year has seen storms named in every month so far. Agnes in September, Babet in October. Ciaran and Debi in November. Elin, Fergus and Gerrit in December and Henk, Isha, and Jocelyn in January 2024.
It’s not unheard of for the UK to experience a sequence of storms across the entire storm season, and in the future, it may become more a regular occurrence. There were eleven storms between November 2015 and March 2016 and at least twelve major winter storms from mid-December 2013 to mid-February 2014, which gained the title of the stormiest period of weather the UK has experienced for at least 20 years.
Although the golf course is holding up, due to a window of dry weather the last few weeks, any more rain will impact on how we enter spring and the number of repairs needed to be done to replace lost turf. Using the course in the winter, or shall we become accustomed to calling it the Wet Season (?) has the result that compaction is magnified over the high traffic areas of the course used by all golfers. The same areas around the tees, carries and green surrounds that take the majority of the foot traffic.
Compaction that occurs with excessive rain is extremely damaging to playing surfaces, because traffic, be it footfall or vehicular, compresses the soil structure reducing the quantity of air spaces within the profile. Without a balanced amount of air spaces, soil particles and available water in the soil, root mass is reduced. Without a heathy root system, plant matter (i.e. the grass species) will be more prone to disease pressure, will thin out and eventually the scenario will lead to turf loss.
The second form of turf loss comes in the form of loss of grass from foot traffic shearing off the plant at the surface, as there is minimum or no growth in the winter, there is nothing to replace it until spring arrives.
To help prevent this issue, areas have been roped off around the course and greens have moved to temporary positions to help prevent compaction and wear in the first instance. Compaction is one of the pivotal causes in the reduction of turf quality and the process of overseeding areas is a little more involved than throwing a lot of seed around.
The forecast for the start of February is that it will be mild with but there’s the chance that cold weather will come from the north any time before spring. With the day’s opening back out and more daylight at the start and end of each day, it will not be long before photosynthesis kicks in and we become a grass factory once more.
National Nature Reserve on the English/Welsh border
Natural England is inviting people in Shropshire to share their views on ideas for a new landscape-scale National Nature Reserve on the English/Welsh border. The proposal is to extend the existing Stiperstones National Nature Reserve, by joining up with landowners and partners to significantly increase the land declared as a National Nature Reserve by up to 5,000 hectares. The Stiperstones National Nature Reserve is made up of a wild landscape of uplands, lowlands, and woodland.
The Stiperstones National Nature Reserve will be one of the King’s Series of National Nature Reserves which were launched last year to celebrate the Coronation of His Majesty King Charles III. The ‘King’s Series of National Nature Reserves’ plan is expected to see five major sites named every year for the next five years. Natural England said the reserves would ‘leave a lasting public legacy for people and nature’
War on weeds
Brighton Borough Council is set to reintroduce the use of Glyphosate (Round-up) as part of its weed control approaches within the city. The council banned the use of glyphosate in 2019 with the removal of weeds undertaken manually since then. It has been part of greater concerns in Europe for the use of chemical methods for the removal of grass and broadleaf weeds in city areas and the push towards greener approaches to weed eradication.
Councillors have now agreed to a controlled-droplet application of glyphosate to manage weeds on hard surfaces in pedestrian and street areas, while parks and open spaces will remain glyphosate-free. The council’s manual methods of cleaning have received complaints about the look of the city, and accessibility for those with mobility issues. Weed seed germination can create a blanket of grass and broadleaf type plants faster than a team can keep up physically scraping off vegetation.
The green approach has also increased highways maintenance because of the damage caused by weeds within tarmac, gaining a hold in a niche hole in the surface and eventually loosen tarmacadam to create potholes. Other methods of removal of weeds include high pressure steam jet treatment of public areas and the use of acidic solutions to treat undesirables. But under recent studies, Glyphosate still leads the table in terms of it being a low-carbon-footprint method of control. The use of Round-Up based products is also considerably cheaper per linear meter than other methods, which cash-strapped councils now have to confront is the dilemma between a green approach and one that balances the budget.