How Crail Golfing Society is overseeding without disruption

By Alistair August 6, 2020 07:03 Updated

As play returns to Crail Golfing Society, a new BLEC Multi-Seeder 1600 is going to be key to delivering overseeding without disruption.

The two 18-hole links courses – Balcomie and Craighead – are notoriously firm and dry creating challenging conditions for effective seed to soil contact.

However, golf course manager Bob Meikle says the size and weight of the BLEC dimple seeder makes it the ideal solution for optimum site-wide seed delivery.

“We initially demonstrated the 1.2m width version of the Multi-Seeder and were impressed straight away at the efficiency and cleanliness with which holes were created, and the accurate seed delivery system” explains Bob, who has been at Crail for 28 years. “We figured that if we went to the next width up, we could overseed areas such as the greens with fewer passes as well as have additional weight to penetrate the firmer areas.”

“The Multi-Seeder being a dimple seeder was one of the biggest selling points” he explains. “It is critical that whatever we do now maintenance-wise, that we don’t cause any breaks in play and the Multi-Seeder is fantastic at leaving very little disruption in its wake. We can pass over a green, then follow over with a turf iron and you wouldn’t know anything has been done.”

Since taking delivery of the Multi-Seeder 1600 from Henderson Grass Machinery in March, Bob and his team have conducted some recovery work on some weaker greens and tees on the Craighead course – utilising the time during lockdown to thoroughly test it out.

“We’ve been experimenting with different moisture levels and transferring the weight between the two spiked rollers to alter the size of the hole produced. We are trying to incorporate more fescues into our tees, so by transferring the weight onto one roller we were able to create a bigger hole, ready to accept the larger, fescue seed.”

With the Multi-Seeder offering a 1.6m working width and non-PTO drive, Bob can quickly and accurately overseed areas both large and small – meaning some fairway overseeding, along with further work on the greens and tees is scheduled for the autumn.