WENOVE CASTLE GC OVERCOMES CHALLENGE

Head greenkeeper at Cardiff’s Wenvoe Castle Golf Club, Lucy Sellick, has cited the small tees and the sustained high levels of play at her course as a major maintenance challenge.

Lucy says she has overcome with this via the use of Johnsons Sports Seeds J Tee mixture, that she says is delivering a combination of rapid establishment and high wear tolerance. 

A team of four assists Lucy with the maintenance of the 18-hole parkland course, labelled as ‘one of the finest challenges of golf in Wales’.

“The big challenge for us is finding seed that can germinate and establish quick enough to cope with the high number of rounds," said Lucy. "I’ve been greenkeeping for a long time, and for our site, I’m yet to find anything that can compete with the establishment and consistency we get with the Johnsons mixtures.” 

The mix incorporates 40% tetraploid ryegrass, in the form of Fabian and Tetragame, which the producer says delivers disease tolerance, shoot density and recovery, even under close mown conditions. It also incorporates Sabrena RSMG - which germinates like a ryegrass, has the fine leaf and density of a bent grass and delivers wear tolerance, even in shady conditions.

“We’ve been using J Tee for the last few years now and continue to see germination in under two weeks, even in the cooler conditions with the J Nitro Tee option," continued Lucy. 

“We sow J Nitro Tee at the start of the season, when everything is a bit slower to give the seed a bit of a head start. We then switch to the regular J Tee in the middle of the season, and have achieved fantastic results. We also use Johnsons J All Bent on our greens which, again, is great for high wear tolerance. The high wear areas around the perimeters of the greens are predominately Poa, but the combination of Arrowtown and Manor outcompetes that and helps us to achieve faster greens with improved disease resistance.”