The key to deep green fairways at Ternesse Golf & Country Club

On the busy outskirts of the center of Antwerp, we find Ternesse Golf & Country Club. The 18-hole Championship course and the extra 9 holes are maintained by Luc De Bie and his team. Their goal is to create an oasis of green with a sense of tranquility, right next to one of the busiest highways in Belgium. 

Golf & Country Club Ternesse in Wommelgem was founded in 1976. From 2009 through 2018, the entire grounds were completely and extensively renovated. Golfers can enjoy themselves on an 18-hole Championship course and a 9-hole course. The size of the course presents many challenges. Constantly monitoring all the grounds and ensuring that any diseases cannot manifest themselves is one of the challenges Luc De Bie and his team face. So it is important to focus on preventive treatments. "We are constantly looking for innovative fertilizers, biostimulants and wetting agents to create the strongest possible weapon against any disease pressure." Here Luc gets a lot of help from the Luc Pauwels nv team with the necessary advice and innovative products.

Huge share of fairways

In addition to the 27 greens, the greenkeepers have to maintain many acres of fairways. During the season and weather permitting, they are often on the riding mower to keep everything as nice as possible. "Normally we fertilize our fairways with urean. Urean provides a soft start in the spring so we don't have to go out too soon with our lawn mowers." This also saves the greenkeeper team work, allowing them to focus more on getting the entire grounds up and running. Later in the season, the fairways require more than just urean nitrogen anyway. Together with Luc Pauwels, an additional solution was sought. 

GreenBion provides the right nutrients

A choice was made from the range of golf course fertilizers with a look at Ternesse's fairways. GreenBion CRF 20-5-10 + 2.5 CaO + 4 MgO was quickly put forward as a solution to quickly protect the greens from Ternesse's challenging conditions. Other fertilizers were tested in recent years. Unfortunately, a uniform spreading pattern was not obtained (spote effect). At the end of April, GreenBion was applied at 150 kg/hectare. The effect was visible, but the dose was too low. Therefore, another application was made in September at 200 kg/hectare. 

"With the humid weather this summer, we experienced grass and dollar spot failures on some parts of our fairways. After the second application in September with GreenBion, we saw a remarkable difference from other years. Everything was nice and green very quickly and the extra growth suppressed the dollar spot." On the golf course itself, the difference was even seen by golfers.

Unique formula ensures rapid growth

Now what makes GreenBion CRF 20-5-10 + 2.5 CaO + 4 MgO the formula for fairways? In dissecting the formula, we see that the proportion of nitrogen is a lot higher than the proportion of potassium. This will work on the longitudinal growth of the grass and provide a boost to the grass in the spring. Even in September, we still have growth which allows us to spread GreenBion fairway fertilizers even then. All GreenBion fertilizers have a CRF formula so the nitrogen is released slowly and not immediately. Because of this, you can still see the effect of the fertilizer after 3 months. 

Forsfor additionally is going to work to stimulate root growth. You don't give a boost with it, it's more of a supplement. Important: The phosphorus is freely available. The potassium part makes the grass stretch, which makes for a denser turf. In addition, magnesium provides a green and intensive color. Finally, calcium provides better absorption of trace elements, one of the building blocks of grass. The calcium oxide will not cause a pH increase.