Environment
Here at Portmore one of our primary goals is to manage the golf courses in harmony with our environment. By carefully planning our golf course management strategies, we have been able to create a number of different environments that has allowed a large number of flora and fauna to thrive, that have never previously been seen at Portmore. In addition a number of ecological projects that have been undertaken to enhance and ensure our goal of increasing the biodiversity of these species on the golf courses.
Biological Management
One of the main ways we aim to reduce our carbon footprint is by utilising biological techniques. This type of turf management relies on establishing beneficial micro-organisms into our soils. By establishing a beneficial Soil Food Web in our playing surfaces we help to prevent turf plant diseases and pest attacks. In addition previous unavailable water and nutrient becomes more readily available to the turfgrass plant. By utilising microbiology in our turf systems we hope to one day become totally organic, in turn moving us away from any in-organic/chemical related applications to our turf that are highly dependant on fossil fuels and therefore fundamentally unsustainable.
Water Management
From the design stage of the course water management was a priority. How to manage the effect of climate change, the predicted hotter summers, heavier rain storms and colder winters. As a country the UK is running out of water suitable for drinking. Pollution levels in ground water have soared over the last eighty years. It was our intention to collect run off water from the roads bordering the site and clean this water to a point where it was suitable for irrigating the golf courses whilst adding interest to 10 of the golf holes and creating a number of superb habitats, as well as reducing the risk of flash flooding.
Grassland Management
Over the last five years we have improved the quality of the environmental rough by cutting, bailing and removing this bulky material. This has had a number of positive points. It has made playing golf at Portmore a much more pleasant experience as the ball can be found and a stroke made at it. By carrying out these operations we have encouraged the finer grass species in our long rough areas.
For the first time this year the varieties of wild flowers in the rough has significantly increased. This in turn has brought a huge increase of the insects and butterfly populations.
By leaving large areas of rough, creating 9 lakes and wet areas, managing woodland, reducing to the absolute minimum the use of pesticides and fertilisers the numbers of different species have increased at an amazing rate. We now have Deer, Badgers, Foxes, Otters, King Fishers, Herons, Dragonflies, Barn Owls, Little Owls, Kestrels, Buzzards, Woodpeckers, Ducks and various Butterflies, all of which were not evident when we were a highly productive Dairy Farm. 'Look after the creepy crawlies and watch what happens'.