PUTTING GREENS

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 8 November 1935, Page 5

PUTTING GREENS

QUALITY OF THE TURFS THOUGHT ‘MOST DISAPPOINTING’ OVERSEAS EXPERT’S VIEW. “In New Zealand, the home of grasses, the quality of the turl on the putting greens of golf courses is most disappointing, due simply to lack of knowledge in greenkeeping and of t]ie selective use. of fertilisers,” said Dr. C. M. Murray, of Capetown, an authority on turf culture, when interviewed in Auckland. In pointing out that turf culture was a thing entirely different from pasture growing, he said putting greens in New Zealand at present resembled pasture. Dr. Murray said he had seen the experimental plots at the greenkeeping research station on the golf course at Palmerston North. Good work was being done there and should lead to a great improvement in the near future. Golfers should watch the reports from the station and be guided by them. Dr. Murray, who recently retired from his medical practice in Capetown, has published a work on greenkeeping in South Africa. During the Great War he served as second in command of the Ist South African Field Ambulance in France, being mentioned in despatches and awarded tho D.S.O. He represented the Medical Association of South Africa at the recent conference of the British Medical Association in Melbourne, and then came to New Zealand to visit Captain A. G. W. Heber-Percy, military A.D.C. to the Governor-General, Viscount Galway. While in Wellington he was the guest of Their Excellencies at Government House.

Dr. Murray said that in other parts of the world it had been found that, by fertilising in a suitable way, fine turf grasses could be encouraged and the coarser grasses discouraged, and the turf correspondingly improved. In the case of all the golf courses he had visited in New Zealand he thought there was still a great deal to be done in learing the value of the various green keeping operations—for instance, how damaging it was to use an ordinary roller and how advantageous it was to use a spiked roller. TOP-DRESSING METHODS. In top-dressing to get good turf it was necessary to do so with compost and fertilisers at least five or six times during the summer. In most cases in New Zealand it was done perhaps only one© in the spring and once in the autumn. The important time was the middle of. the summer. Another point was the importance of applying fertilisers in a dry state, mixed with compost. In this way the effects of the fertiliser were more prolonged and better for tire turf than were the effects of applying the fertiliser in the liquid form. It was interesting to note that latitude 35 degrees south, a line running approximately through the vicinity of Capetown, Sydney and North Auckland, seemed to he the dividing line in the choice of turf grasses. North of this line good turf was made from the couch grasses, and south of the line the choice lay between the fescues and bents. Couch grasses made better turf for putting greens than did the fescues and bents, and were easier to maintain. FTNE PASTURE LAND. Dr. Murray said lie was rather impressed with the possibilities of good greens at Hamilton and Palmerston North. In Australia good use was being made of New Zealand browntop, by using it free from mixture with other seeds, and New Zealand seed formed the basis of most seed mixtures used in England. “I have been immensely impressed with the pasture in New Zealand,” said Dr. Murray. “I have been interested to meet several farmers who are embarking on intensive fertilisation, and the country seems eminently suited for it. I thought the sheep looked well, but, the cattle, which 1 have only seen when passing along the roads, seemed rather poor. They did not appear as good as one might expect in a country with such good pasture. That, however, may be due to the time of year, as they have just come through the winter.”

Dr. Murray, who is the guest of Sir Carrick Robertson, has just spent a few days fishing at Taupo. He said he thoroughly enjoyed the sport which he obtained there and earlier in the Pahiatua district.