If your green maintenance budget was cut in half this year what would you do?
Most clubs when faced with cuts to the greenkeeping budget, will try at all costs to keep the most important work in the plan. Unfortunately, important frequently gets confused with dramatic, which means that the big expense of top-dressing in the spring and autumn usually stays in the plan and I wish it didn’t for all the reasons I’ve explained over many articles.
Meantime, the work deemed less important and which of course is less dramatic is often sidelined or dropped as a result of a fear of what might go wrong if the big, sexy stuff is missed. These big jobs “must be doing a lot of good”, or so the thinking goes, because they’re so expensive and disruptive?
During dry and hot weather the need to water your green properly can't be over emphasised. Although it can be tempting to let the green burn to achieve speed, this can turn to disaster and cause the green to fail later in the season.
The Sweet Spot in greenkeeping is when your green's Physical, Chemical and Biological components come into line to deliver results you couldn't previously have imagined were possible. Hitting that sweet spot is a lot simpler than you might imagine too, as focus on the soil's biology will naturally correct some of the worst Chemical problems and compensate for some of the worst Physical ones. There should be no problem "selling" this idea to your club either as first of all it saves money and secondly it massively improves green performance and consistency.
You might read about the possibility of dealing with fairy ring by using fungicides, or even be advised to use such an approach. Fungicides could well be part of the reason you have fairy ring in your turf in the first place so it’s best not to go down this road. Applying fungicide now is a sure way to cast your green back into another spin on the Circle of Decline. The correct action plan is clear and simple.
I’ve sometimes asked readers of this blog to take on board some fairly lofty principles, which at first, might seem unrelated to the real world of daily greenkeeping with all the incumbent pressures and demands it brings. Bowling green performance is a long term game and consistently paying attention to 3 key principles will pay great dividends. In stark contrast to this we have the chopping and changing of techniques, materials and ideas I see and hear about at clubs all over the UK which almost always results in disappointment.
It's hard to believe that a bowling club could easily save £1800 in greenkeeping costs every year whilst actually improving the green. Do nothing greenkeeping is my name for this phenomenon and I estimate that 98% of UK bowling clubs could benefit from it, starting this year.
A lot of bowling greenkeepers simply don't have the time or facilities to brew compost tea regularly enough for it to make a real difference. As a result, I am frequently asked if there is an effective alternative that is easy to use and avoids the brewing process and set up, hence the New, Biology Bundle!
For rapid development and lower cost maintenance of seeded or turfed sports surfaces
Sports Turf Root Developer is a high quality inoculant containing a range of different species of beneficial endo-mycorrhizae and a range of beneficial bacteria species. Containing 50,000 propagules/g of mycorrhizae and 10⁷ of bacteria (20 different species & strains) in an optimised ratio, Sports Turf Root Developer provides an ideal solution for populating root zone soils and establishing biological activity.
Sometimes we over complicate things in greenkeeping. Checking off the points on this short list of things to change in your programme will help a great deal to simplify your life.