Nurturing Nature through Sustainable Golf Course Management
In our most recent blog post, we delve into the trending subject of sustainability. We had the privilege of chatting with the Course Manager, Carl Crocher at Caldy Golf Club, located on the picturesque Wirral Peninsula along the River Dee. Here, amidst some of the most breathtaking views in golf, we uncover Caldy's commitment to environmental approaches and share some of their exemplary practices.
Sustainability is a longstanding focus for Caldy, with a range of initiatives already in place to ensure the preservation of the environment for generations to come, let's find out more...
What IPM strategies do you currently undertake to control Weeds Pests and Diseases?
For weed control we try to hand weed greens, spot treat surrounds and fairways and only blanket spray tees. We try to keep scarring and damage to a minimum, as this will be where weed seeds get started. We use a mixture of products that gives us the best efficacy, for the least money and reduces our need to spray more than once per season.
Addressing pests, we prioritise methods that avoid creating unnecessary disruptions on surfaces during the egg laying period.
For disease, we try to keep the plant healthy, using products that help us get the best from our nutrition programme, and we have an autumn programme designed to reduce fungicide use. Being prepared to accept small levels of damage and try to take advantage of these by introducing finer grasses into our more susceptible areas.
What are your current practices to reduce water usage?
Use the best wetters for our site. Time irrigation to get the most from the application, and only use irrigation to apply minimum amounts, topping ridges, slopes and areas around the periphery using hand hoses.
What do you do to reduce inputs of fertilisers?
We monitor growth rates and feed based on the plant's needs. We apply low levels of granulars and top with spray applications around the peaks of our season. Trying to make sure that we use the best application windows and avoid practices after that could remove what we’ve applied.
Are you moving to battery powered products?
Only in the workshop.
Are you looking at employing robotic mowers to reduce labour inputs?
Not currently, we would consider this for our range, going forward, but our fairway contouring makes it very difficult for robots to follow.
Are you implementing any rewilding/wildflower planting to reduce mowing regimes?
We have been managing the rough here for many years, with varying regimes and cutting frequencies. We have seen most areas improve immeasurably during that time as we scarify, cut and collect. In some areas, we have added wildflower seed, though only what is considered indigenous and only perennials. We have many ponds throughout the course that we also manage, through silt removal, overflow installation and altering surrounding contours to enable us to control suckering and weed infestations.
How does the recent u-turn on the EU regulations to reduce the use of pesticides effect you?
This rejection from Parliament will not make any difference to our course management practices. We have been trying to get ahead of this for many years with our focus now on trying to deal with the shade issues we still have in places and ensure we have a diverse sward capable of dealing with them.
What new sustainable practices have you put in place?
Our main drive over the past couple of seasons has been to introduce finer grasses into fairways and extended surrounds. Our boxing of extended areas has improved sward content, which in turn has reduced worm casting. We have installed Toro greens heads to improve distribution, reduce run times, and linked to new variable speed drive pumps, to reduce energy consumption. We are currently reducing our bunkering, removing bunkers we consider irrelevant, strategically. This has reduced our maintenance input and sand requirements. Our new Par 3 course has no bunkers.
