Pete Smith, Course Manager at the Birch Grove Estate in Sussex, has reported ‘phenomenal’ results using Sherriff Amenity’s Aqua-Zorb wetting agent to bring the fairways on the 18-hole, 7000-yard golf course back to life.
When the current owners purchased Birch Grove in 2011, and decided to return the course to its former glory, Pete Smith (an experienced greenkeeper and previously course manager at the Cavendish Club) was brought in to reinstate the course.
The course has greens and tees constructed to USGA specification, is ‘purely by invitation only’, and has maximum of 150 rounds of golf (annually) played on it.
“We have irrigation on the greens, tees and approaches, but we don’t have fairway irrigation and I have never really used a wetting agent on them,” says Pete. “However, it got to the stage in early July that we were starting to lose large parts of the fairway where we hadn’t had any irrigation or rainfall. Joseph Dormer, Amenity Specialist for Sherriff Amenity, suggested using the Aqua-Zorb Liquid as a curative effect and we thought we’d give it a go.”
Aqua-Zorb Liquid from Sherriff Amenity is a concentrated non-ionic turf wetting agent, and one application can last all season. It is renowned for treating the cause of Localised Dry Patch.
On applying Aqua-Zorb it is recommended the operator should immediately irrigate with a minimum 3mm of water, or spray during rainfall. “Without fairway irrigation, I was reliant on rainfall,” Pete says. “I waited until it started raining before applying the Aqua-Zorb. It ended up chucking it down, and I ended up with about 16mm of rainfall which is pretty much four times the required water volume. At the time I was convinced it wasn’t going to work, that it would just wash off and I had wasted all of the product.”
Two days later, Pete was amazed to see the fairways ‘greening up’.
“I will absolutely, un-questionably, use Aqua-Zorb in the spring next year as my six-month fairway wetting agent. I will put it down with 100% confidence because I know how heavy that rainfall was. It was quite incredible seeing the results from this year and I know I won’t have to worry anymore about my fairways burning off or be concerned about losing them if we have another dry spell.”
Pete was also quick to praise the customer service he receives from Sherriff Amenity’s Joseph Dormer.
“Customer service is excellent,” says Pete. “Joseph is relatively new in his role and having previously been a greenkeeper he is extremely knowledgeable. I took his advice and I’m pleased I did!”
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