Neil McLoughlin, course manager at Deeside Golf Club, has been in the industry for over twenty years. Last year the River caused the courses to flood six times and this year the same problem has occurred four times already
“We do use a lot of Primo Maxx for the greens, tees, fairways, approaches and on some rough around the greens. Keeping on top of Primo Maxx applications has prepared us for when we flood because I can afford to skip a cut. Before Primo Maxx, we’d have to cut after a flood and we would make an absolute mess and ruin the mowers – so with the Primo Maxx there is not as much pressure.
“One year we sprayed the fairways on the Haughton course with Primo Maxx but we didn’t on the Blairs course. During a period where we had heavy rain we went out to cut the Blairs fairways and there were grass clippings everywhere.
“When I haven’t used Primo Maxx I’ve gone out and cut the greens in the morning and by the following day I’d be out there taking off maybe four boxes of grass – now I don’t even fill half a box. The greens must have been a hell of a lot slower in the afternoons than they were in the mornings before we were using Primo Maxx.
Neil sprays his greens every two weeks with Primo Maxx and in addition to applying the growth regulator he applies two granular feeds a year to the greens and one at the start of the season on the tees
“We used SierrablenPlus this year – which is the first time we’ve used it. We were looking for a product that would give us a good slow release without a flush of growth. Coming out of a very hard winter we were frozen for a long period of time and the green surrounds were in a very poor condition. We had the challenge of trying to grow grass in May last year when there was no soil temperature and we had the Championship in the middle of June too. So we urgently needed something that would colour them up and thicken the sward without that top growth. We tried the SierrablenPlus Stress Control 15-0-28 and it worked incredibly well, so I’ll definitely be sticking with it going forward.”
Other products to also feature in Neil’s Everris inventory is Greenmaster Liquid Spring & Summer 12-4-6, which is ideal to use during the main growth periods; Qualibra – a premier wetting and water conservation agent and MedallionTL fungicide – a product which Neil believes offers long-lasting control in winter conditions.
www.icl-sf.co.uk