St Andrews Links Blog

Winter environmental work on the Eden

We had the opportunity to commence some of our winter environmental management plans earlier than expected throughout the month of October and into November on the Eden and Strathtyrum Courses.

We first turned our attention to the Operation Pollinator (O.P) areas. In order to ensure we can re-produce or even surpass the quality and quantity of wildflowers seen this summer, we carried out the process of cutting, collecting, recycling and reusing all clippings from these areas on the courses.

We used the Wiedenmann Super 500 & 600 machines to carry out the works. The Wiedenmann cuts and collects all the grass within the area. One of the advantages of these machines is that they also gently scarify the ground while collecting clippings. This allows us to spread any re-useable clippings into these areas where the soil has been exposed.

One of the most important grass species for the success of our O.P. works is ‘yellow rattle’. This wildflower has the ability to draw nutrients from coarser grass species, thus thinning the sward and allowing wildflower species to thrive. Any yellow rattle clippings collected were dispersed into some of our newer areas such as to the rear of the 12^th green and adjacent to the 1^st tee on the Strathtyrum Course.

We also had an early start to some gorse management with further attention given to the left hand side of the 7^th fairway on the Eden Course. For the last few years, we have focused on enhancing and protecting the view of the estuary that golfers enjoy when playing the 7^th hole by removing any old or decaying gorse plants.

This year, we therefore ensured that any remaining gorse plants in this area would not reach a height obscuring the views of the estuary and removed any old gorse stumps. The grassland running along this side of the hole and through the gorse was cut down to semi-rough height. All of the above has once more enhanced this special part of the Eden Course and allows golfers the chance to take in the beautiful estuary when playing towards the challenging 7^th green.

An additional winter operation that we made headway on was the maintenance of our heather populations on the courses. Many of these areas were topped with the collected heather seed then dispersed into the soil. We hope that the topping will allow for healthier regeneration of the plants for next year while further heather seed is established within the heather beds (the soil). We also had the additional challenge of removing young gorse sprigs, as left unchecked the gorse could easily take over within these areas – quite a thorny job for those involved!

We were very happy to get a head start on some of our winter plans and are looking forward to completing the rest of them, with particular focus on grassland and gorse management.

Words by Frank Aherne, Eden Greenkeeping Team