Mycorrhizal fungi are of huge importance to the health and well being of your bowling green. In previous articles I have described the symbiotic relationships that grass plants form with fungi in the soil. These relationships are vital to the grass plant's ability to absorb enough nutrients from the soil. This post links to an excellent BBC documentary that explores this subject.
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Today we have a guest post from Vinny Tarbox of The Grass Group on the subject of Ultragrooming. Over to Vinny:
The question of Ultragrooming is becoming much more of a hot topic with the ever increasing need for consistent play, be more environmentally friendly, whilst also high quality and also to trim costs where possible.
Ultragrooming is a process that removes the puffiness and thatch from your green. With regular use it is the pre-eminent solution to help minimize puffiness in both high density creeping bent and Bermuda (warm season areas) grass thereby reducing the scalping and foot-printing that plagues these new grasses. It will remove unsightly seed heads in Poa annua turf with minimal fuss. On newly established greens it can help reduce the ingress of Poa annua by “grabbing” individual Poa plants before they get a chance to take hold. It will produce a superior fine leafed Poa turf stand when used
regularly on Poa dominant greens.
The Advanced Read more
Today I want to get a little bit deeper into the science of bowling green ecology, but I’m getting a little tired of the Ecology title sequence I stupidly started 9 articles ago. Instead of continuing to label them Ecology 1,2,3…etc, I will give them a tag of their own so that if you’re looking for them on the site you just need to type ecology into the search box.
Mycorrhizal Fungi (mycorrhizae) are specialised fungi that work with our grass plants to form symbiotic relationships with the roots. Most soils contain these fungi and each type has its own peculiar host preference. (i.e., each plant species has a specific species of mycorrhizae that it prefers to work with).
The name comes from the Latin word mycor meaning fungus and rhiza meaning root. “Mycorrhiza” is the singular form and “mycorrhizae” the plural and, in soil science the name refers to the tissue that forms when fungi and roots develop a symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship.
One of the key benefits to our grass Read more
Its time again for clubs to be thinking about the end of season maintenance program and many of these programs will follow “tradition” and will include the application of several tonnes of high sand content top-dressing.
However, one of the most prevalent problems on bowling greens in the UK is that of Localised Dry Patch LDP a condition that causes soil to become hydrophobic (water repellent) and which is undoubtedly related to excessive sand content in rootzone
The autumn renovation program is the only real chance clubs have to start to make inroads into the major problems with their greens and the only time when it is possible to make large corrections to thatch and compaction; and you’ve guessed it, thatch is another major problem associated with LDP.
Localised Dry Patch creates large dry areas on greens where grass dies back and the surface is disrupted. All attempts to re-wet these areas by watering the green are doomed to failure due to the water repellent nature of the underlying soil.
The application of yet more sandy top-dressing is not going to make this better; indeed it will in most cases make the problem worse next year.
It would be more beneficial to start the process of recovery by following a program that includes thatch reduction, wetting agent application and overseeding. All autumn programs should include the application of a granular fertiliser to correct any underlying deficiencies, usually a low N and high K product.
Where moss is a problem; and with LDP it usually is, you should use a proprietary moss-killer or lawn sand between 2 and 4 weeks before thatch removal work.
