Visit to Currcloe and Darcys sandpit

 


With the College, we attended a trip to both Currcloe and Darcys sandpit in County Wexford.

We first went to the new grow-in at the new Currcloe golf course, and we saw all the new areas they had seeded in. They also mentioned the fact that they used a method of hydroseeding in certain parts of the grow-in, which was very interesting to me as I had never heard of this method of seeding.

They mentioned what they had sown the greens with, primarily fescue-based greens with a small amount of creeping bent. 

We also got to see the rough outline of the bunkers that will be present, and I thought they were massive. They also mentioned that they are only hand-cutting greens now and into the future. I was also surprised by this as the surface area of the greens was considerably big, especially to be hand-cutting them.

We also got to see their fleet of machinery, which was quite limited as the site is still in its novel stages, and the headman mentioned that they will be getting all new machinery when the course is fully set up.

I have since upgraded my phone and I have lost the pictures of Currcloe. I also got to see the new irrigation system that Aquaturf had installed in their course. They were simultaneously installing our new irrigation system, so I am familiar with the Rainbird system and I have attached a photo of our irrigation system running, which is identical to theirs.




Later on in the day, we visited Darcy's sandpit. Here we got to see all the different types of sand and gravel that they sell. They have a large customer base, primarily golf courses, but they also supply sand to pitches around the country. We got to see them processing sand samples through the machines.

Below are two pictures of the machinery that they have in Darcy's sandpit. They wash the sand and sort it in particle sizes to ensure that the highest quality of sand is available for topdressing greens with atleast 60% of particles between 0.25mm-1.0mm. To ensure stability, drainage and smooth playing surfaces. With less that 20%, 0.15-0.25mm to preventcompaction and excessive moisture retention. I found this on the Darcys website "All our sand is tested weekly and these tests are available at all times. All our products have been CE Marked and Certified." 

So you know when youre buying sand from Darcys that it will be of the highest quality and you dont have to worry.

We also got to see their Profile mix that they offer ( For a large fee) I found this quite iteresting as I mentioned this to my mentor Mark and he told me that they used profile in Adare manor when he was working there and he spoke to me about the benefits of using Profile as it retains someof the properties of Clay molecules while also keeping the structural ingerity of a sand based green. 


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