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The great top dressing hoax

Top dressing with high sand content composts has become a tradition in bowling green maintenance but it is far from beneficial.

  1. After 3 decades of routine top-dressing most greens are “inert” and can’t support a population of beneficial soil microbes.
  2. Soil microbes break down thatch and release nutrition to the turf.
  3. High sand and thick thatch usually result in Localised Dry Patch which is a long lasting, devastating condition that causes the soil to repel water.
  4. The surface smoothing and levelling actions of top-dressing are massively over-sold and of very little relevance to producing a smooth, fast green.
  5. Most bowling green irrigation systems are inadequate to start with, but are completely useless in the face of localised dry patch.

The process of top-dressing a bowling green has become so ingrained in our maintenance practices that it is hard to find a club that doesn’t do it, but over the decades it has devastated a huge number of greens in the UK.

Do your green and your wallet a favour and break the habit this year.

Performance bowls green properties.

How can we ensure a consistently high performance bowling green that is economical to produce and maintain. There are 4 specific goals that we need to achieve to say that we have such a green:

Green Speed; the actual surface pace that we can reasonably expect from the green on a regular basis.
Consistency; the ability of the green to replicate high performance throughout the day, week and season and also from season to season.
Predictability; the ability of the green and individual rinks to be set up for play of a reasonably predictable nature, time after time and over time.
Achievability; high performance must be not only physically achievable but also relatively easily achievable and for that the program we put in place must tick the following boxes; it must be:

Workable; with “in-house” labour and skills or with a financially sustainable amount of “bought in” labour and skills.
Sustainable in terms of its environmental, financial and infrastructural requirements.
Replicable time after time within the parameters defined above.
Minimum Input in terms of artificial fertilisers, chemicals and expensive bought in machinery or skills.

The goals we have set above require us to produce a very specific kind of green surface.

Performance Bowls Greens-Getting Down to it

The season is well underway now and its around this time in the season when suddenly it hits clubs that the green isn’t up to scratch…again!

One of the most common problems we hear about from Performance Bowls Greens readers is the difficulty in getting the philosophy to stick at their club. Its all too simple to fall off the wagon and go back to old “traditional” habits.

There are of course no silver bullets in Bowling Green Management but for a lot of clubs the call of the “instant fix” magic potion from a bag or bottle soon looks much more attractive than the relentless application of a strict maintenance program that takes time to show results.

The difference however, is that by applying the Performance Bowling Greens philosophy you ensure that your green improves a little bit every week, and that you work inexorably towards excellence in green surface management.

The typical reliance on the quick fix that still dominates the bowling green maintenance world delivers the most disappointing of results, when greens suffer the continuous peaks and troughs of acceptable performance followed by seemingly un-fixable surface disasters. This the sequence of trial and error that sees clubs go through many phases of committee and greenkeeper changes while meantime the green just keeps getting worse.

To deliver a Performance Bowling Green you must stick to a plan that makes allowance for the following phases of development.

  1. Green Appraisal- Thorough Agronomic and Performance appraisal of green.
  2. Baseline Maintenance Plan– to provide a firm foundation before further development.
  3. Remedial Maintenance Program– work to correct underlying problems.
  4. High Performance Plan– Measures employed to develop green towards performance requirements of club.
  5. Continuous Improvement– A program of Continuous Improvement ensures continued high performance

Such an approach is easily understood by all concerned and simple to communicate to the wider membership.

More soon.

 

Do you make these 5 bowls green keeping errors?

  1. Mowing too close;  this causes scalping, moss, weeds and weed grasses such as annual meadow grass.
  2. Over watering; this causes a spongy bowls green surface, poor rinks, compaction, encourages annual meadow grass and fungal disease.
  3. Over fertilising; this causes lush growth and the subsequent slowing down of the green, can contribute to disease outbreaks, poor sward composition and unpredictable playing characteristics.
  4. Mowing too infrequently; this causes peaks and troughs of high performance and under performance of the green. mowing frequency is probably the most important factor in achieving consistent green performance.
  5. Top-dressing; the myth that bowls greens need to be top-dressed regularly is all about selling top dressing materials and services. it is not beneficial to the majority of UK bowling greens and in fact is detrimental to the health of the turf, soil eco-system, is costly and leads to long term problems with thatch, poor performance and localised dry patch.

You can read in detail about how bowls green condition declines here.

The answer to achieving a High Performance Bowls Green is here.

Club Turnaround Success Story

I recently received this inspiring message from one of our Bowls Mastermind Network Members that I know will be of great interest to many of you:

Dear John

I am chairman of a Bowling Club that has risen from the ashes and I thought your other readers might like to hear how we did it!

 Four years ago we reached the dreaded October with no money (not a penny) and 30 members.

The club opened every Friday evening for a ‘social evening’……but this was frequented by half a dozen regulars for a drink and a chat ie. not very useful!

I took over as Chairman, because nobody else would, since then I have had carte blanche over club affairs.

Next to our club is the local Leisure Centre with two indoor rinks.

We started evening roll ups indoors followed by quizzes/ bingo in our club during the winter.

In the summer we have roll ups outdoors every Friday tied to a competition with the best 8 scores counting followed by the inevitable quizzes and other entertainments.

This format has lifted our turnover to some £15,000 over the last two years.

As an aside we had all our machinery stolen in that dreaded October 4 years ago due to a very insecure and neglected Machine Building.

With the insurance claim and our new found turnover we have spent some £25,000 over the last 3 years on everything the club needs.

Without warning the indoor rinks have been closed this year which threatens attendance during our winter period.

Our answer to this is to supplement our winter entertainment with professional acts every 3 weeks or so. (Single singers/comedians/magicians etc at an average cost of £150).

The extra cost of this will be offset with an entry fee of £2 or £3 per member….we expect between 40 and 50 members each Friday. We can only accommodate this number comfortably.

Currently the membership is well over 70 and still rising.

We have a much higher local profile and make use of all the local organisations to our own ends.

Finally, honest!, due to all the above our success on the green has seen 2 unprecedented years.

I feel as though I have taken your advice without knowing it which is a little spooky!!

Good Luck with the website, I will certainly stick around for the foreseeable future.

Cheers

 Name withheld by request

If anyone else has a story to share please get in touch.