Jake Butler ( Rosslare Golf Club)

My first Blog

 

My name is Jake Butler and I have been working as a greenskeeper for the past year. I previously worked as a chef upon completing my leaving cert for 5 years. I decided to go for a career change in 2024 and Mark in Rosslare gave me a great opportunity to learn a new trade and now they have given me the opportunity to start the Sportsturf Management Apprenticeship. 

My first experience of being back in education has been good so far, getting used to be being back in the classroom and taking notes and drawing diagrams. We have gotten setup on Moodle and now we are starting our blogs, this is a new experience for me as I have never used Moodle or Blogger previously.

So far I have learnt a few things such as, The anatomy of a grass plant, We have also been identifying species of grass by their Latin names. We have learnt about how soils are formed from different types of rocks (parent material) from Sedimentary rocks, Metamorphic rocks and Igneous rocks. Depending on the different type of parent material, that will dictate the type of soil found on the site. 

I am going to use this blog to give an accurate description to my peers on the course, of the activities that are ongoing in Rosslare and if there are any interesting aspects that other courses might not see.

Some unique aspects of my workplace are that we have just had a complete rennovation of our irrigation system. We have had all new railbird sprinkler systems been put in place, replacting the old outdated system that was in place.This old system could only be controlled by valves in boxes, by physically turing them on. Now we have the capabilities of being able to set up the irrigation system via a computer and app on a phone, running different types of watering to differnt places depeding on what needs watering specifically, enabling us to give a more targeted watering schedule, leading to better overall quality of the course. 

Something that I am interested in regarding Sportsturf management is finding novel ways to fight diseases that doesnt have a detrimental impact on the environment or the soil/leaf, that is also cost effective for the club; Also watching the evolution of diseases,  as new diseases arrise in Ireland and keeping up to date with effective ways to fight diseases.