Page 26 - GM spring 2024

Rough program test plots run by Shaun Honcoop.
Photo © Shaun Honcoop, Assistant Superintendent
Due to a rain shortfall in 2015, Vancouver now has a Golf Course Water Management Plan. Under the GCWMP, courses are given an allotment of water for use between May 1st and October 15th – to be managed by each course as we see fit.
The CPKC time slot for the 2023 season was in the last week of August. This meant we were going to have to make it through a long season of play with proper water conservation to make it to that date.
We were confident with respect to the greens. With the highest level of inputs per square foot, the most overall daily care and certainly the most in-depth time-domain reflectometry (TDR) work, we knew we would get to the event with excellent putting surfaces. Fairways and roughs then moved to the top of the priority list. Hand watering was going to play a large role in making sure we hit the event with good grass coverage without blowing up our water allotment.
I have never been a fan of connecting into irrigation heads for hand watering. The learning curve, although not huge, presents a hurdle, and too often, we have seen irrigation heads left in the off position, rather than the auto position, making conditions worse rather than better. Through the winter of ‘22/’23, we installed an additional 50 quick- connects (QC), giving us the ability to send any staff member out with a hose without having to worry about other complications.
The challenge at Shaughnessy is holding the shots hit onto our small, firm greens. The LPGA wanted 25-yard-wide fairways. With firm and fast fairways, any shots slightly offline would roll into the rough, testing even the best players in the world. But, for this test to hold up, we needed to ensure that we could grow rough after a long summer of heavy play and little moisture.
The newly installed QCs were the first step. Completely revamping our rough’s cultural program was the second. We moved from a primary granular program, to spraying our roughs with a 1/4lb. of urea on a 21-day interval, tank mixed with the focus on Primo and Civitas. Both products were used to promote better root systems and thicker denser canopies, a great start.
Civitas was new to me; I had run a few trials on high traffic areas with decent results the previous two seasons but had not targeted drought management specifically. Primos main draw was that the thinning of the leaf blade meant fewer stomates, which would lead to less transpiration.
We started the program in May. Primo was removed from the tank in July. Nitrogen and Civitas were left in the program until our final spray on August 16th. We removed Primo when temperatures and moisture deficiencies were at their max, to promote active recovery, while also raising the HOC to help drive roots. I was hopeful of getting Primo back into the program before the event.
I wanted to slow the growth of the rye to enhance consistency after the final cut before the event, thereby preventingagapinthegrowthrates between the poa and rye varieties.
Coming out of winter we typically have rough heights of 1.25”. This helps the year-round players hit through wet rough. It is also hard to predict when we would have the chance to cut during the rainy season so a lower HOC buys us a little more time between needing to cut during these months if the moisture levels were too high. After the spring aeration we move to 1.75” for the remainder of the year.
In 2023, we came out of aeration at 2”, to promote our root depth. The Primo was very helpful in preventing the memberships from seeing big growth spurts between rough cuts, which made this increase in HOC go almost unnoticed. The membership did struggle with the increased density that the new program delivered.
Primo also gave us labour flexibility. We had the ability to skip a cut and know the growth would not leave us with a mess when we needed to get back on schedule. Fast-forward through the season and after the one timely 20mm of rainfall in July, we moved the rough to 2.5”, and finally up to the desired 3” the day after our Club Championship matches finished on August 14th.
With one additional 14 mm of rainfall in August, we were happy with the results. The rough was alive and growing; the final cut occurred
26 • CGSA • GreenMaster