High Post Greenkeepers Blog

24/08/2017

A New Start:

High Post Golf Club

Monday the 14^th of August was my first day as Golf Course manager at High Post. It was with a heavy heart that I left Kingsdown but I am super excited about the future and developing one of the country’s classic downland golf courses. In my brief inspection of the course the biggest negative was the severity of the crow damage to some of the tees already, so this is the first point I thought I would address in my blog.

The damage you see to the tees is caused my crows and magpies pecking and ripping at the turf to feed on the Chafer grub which is the larvae of the Chafer beetle. The main species that effect turf grass swards and cause the most damage in the UK are the Common garden Chafer or European Chafer and Cock Chafer. There are also the Welsh Chafer and Summer Chafer (Phyllopherfa). The physical appearance of the grubs in larval stage is c shaped, white with three pairs of jointed legs that look orange or brown. The Garden Chafer is the smallest up to 18mm long where cock chafer can grow up to 44mm long.

The Garden Chafer has a one-year life cycle and the adult beetles have a metallic green head and bronze body were the Cock Chafer has a four-year life cycle. They emerge from pupa state in May and June and immediately start to fly and breed whether dependant as they favour warm nights. The females lay approximately 20 eggs about 20cm deep in the turf or thatch layer over a 5-day period. If the moisture is correct within the turf the lava hatch and feed until October where they move deeper in the soil for the winter. Pupation then takes place the following year for Garden Chafer and four years for Cock Chafer.

Chafer grubs eat the roots of the grass plant weaken the turf causing yellow or brown patches, most of the damage then comes from secondary pests such as crows, magpies and badgers ripping at the turf to get to the grubs. At this stage, it is currently damage limitation as the grubs are just beneath the turf feeding on the roots and thatch layer and the birds understand they are there. We will do what we can to scare the birds away to reduce damage to the surfaces with methods such as; scare crow devices both electronic and physical, bird scaring bangers that set off every 30mins for 6 hours and shooting them with a shotgun. We will also run over the affected tees with our pro core spiking machine to try and take out some of the grubs with the solid tines.

 

 

 

 

 

Varried control measures in place at High Post over the past two weeks.

 

To maintain the turf and reduce numbers of chafer grubs going forward it is vital to increase turf health allowing the grass plant to recover quicker from attack and reduce the amount of thatch just beneath the surface which the beetles lay their eggs and then the grubs feed on. This will be done with varied aeration practices including scarifying, top dressing and solid tine aeration.

All pesticide control measures have been banned for the control of Chafer grubs so more focus has to be on cultural methods and sound IPM plans. Record keeping is a way of documenting numbers and target areas, controlling thatch levels as the grubs live in this so the removal with good aeration methods will reduce numbers by removing habitat and feeding source. Heavy rolling when grubs are near the surface is known to eliminate some numbers and scarification or liner aeration will also affect select numbers.

The focus is keeping the turf area dry when egg laying is active and utilising all of the above through sound IPM strategy to effect numbers and increase turf health and is ability to recover from attack. Pheromone traps have also been used with limited success and we will consider the promotion of local bat species by erecting bat boxes to help control numbers in the future although damage will be expected until a chemical control is provided. Thank you for your patience on this issue. I am on annual leave from the 25^th of August – the 14^th of September but already looking forward to returning and getting stuck in.