Deal with thatch and compaction Now

Regular readers of my articles will know my views on bowling green maintenance problems; essentially there are only 2 that you have to worry about.

Everything else that goes wrong with greens is a symptom of these big 2 issues or indeed a symptom of the commonly held views on how to tackle the big 2.

What are the big 2?:

Thatch: the build up of dead shoots, roots and debris on the turf surface that can get out of hand very quickly and cause or contribute to a huge number of problems. See my article on the circle of decline here
Compaction: the squeezing of air out of the soil profile by foot and maintenance traffic.

Why I am banging on about this again?

Well hopefully your autumn and winter program is fully geared up to dealing with these two big issues.

By now I hope you have undertaken any major thatch removal work required and that you are now embarking on “an all winter long” attack on compaction.

Regular deep slit tining is the best way to relieve compaction; please note this is not a one off job regardless of how impressive the machine used.

It is necessary to continually slit tine the green through the winter to a depth of 150mm or deeper if you can.

Once a week isn’t too much, twice a month is more typical; stop during frost or excessively wet conditions but pick it up again as soon as possible afterwards.

For a full appraisal of essential winter maintenance tasks for your bowling green the Autumn/Winter report is still available at half price:

Autumn and Winter Bowling Green Maintenance Guide

The ultimate guide to Autumn Renovation and Winter Bowling Green Maintenance detailing the essential maintenance your bowling green needs through this most critical of maintenance seasons. What you do now will determine how the green performs next season. INSTANT DOWNLOAD ebook more details

Price: £9.97

March 5, 2012

Why has our bowls green become slippery?

This week I thought I would take some time out to address some of the questions that have led site visitors here from the search engines. We did this for a week last autumn and it was very successful with a lot of good feedback from readers.

The first one stood out to me as it seems to be a very common issue around the country and is really very simple to fix. We have a had a variety of different questions centred on greens becoming slippery.

This can happen for a variety of Read more

March 1, 2012

Bowls Green Maintenance and elephants

In the early part of the season no growth means no recovery from last winter’s damage, bare areas not filling in with new grass, bumps, hollows and all sorts of other problems mostly related to surface smoothness and consistency.

I’ve heard more than my fair share of strange reasons in bowling green maintenance circles when there is a lack of growth. These mostly centre on almost every bowling green maintenance practice except the one that matters…why?

Well the one that matters is “Irrigation” and it’s still a big taboo in a lot of clubs and in bowling green maintenance circles; it’s “the elephant in the room” to use one of the most annoying buzz phrases in recent times! However the elephant in the room description is a good one in this case; it’s this big, obvious thing in the room or in the conversation, but nobody mentions it!

One club I met with told me they have an “anti-watering brigade” in their club! Can you believe that, a group of members who are actively against watering the green regardless of how much it needs it?

On a well known bowling forum which shall remain nameless here, a contributor added his tuppence to the discussion on irrigation by “boasting” that they never water their green, as if it was some impressive badge to be worn. Another says that watering 3 times a day is crazy (as suggested by another contributor), even though he has no information to tell him the quantity of water being applied or thinking behind the plan.

We really must get over this folks or there will be a lot of very poor bowling green surfaces next year.

February 28, 2012

Bowls Green Maintenance Basics-Green Speed

The great debate about green speed has raged on since the beginning of the game. But what are the factors known to affect green speed?

In order of their impact on green speed these are the top 7 factors that you should bear in mind. Obviously there are others such as weather patterns, level of play etc, but these are largely out of the greenkeepers control and in any case do not figure highly in green speed management.

Thatch Layer Control and Management; this means knowing the thatch levels on your green and having a feel for how quickly thatch builds up at each point in the year.

Typically thatch will be much quicker to build up in the main growing season and it can easily take greenkeepers by surprise if they don’t keep a watchful eye on the situation.

Reducing a troublesome thatch layer significantly is a job best left for the autumn when severe measures can more safely be taken, but following the Performance Greens program will ensure that you are minimising the occurrence of new thatch through the production and maintenance of a healthy living rootzone and turf.

You can find more in-depth articles on thatch here.
Compaction Control and Relief; Second only to thatch in causing green problems, Compaction is a Read more

February 25, 2012

for effective Bowls Green Maintenance water Deeply not Daily!

Bowling green irrigation or watering is often mis-understood and as a result is often managed insufficiently to ensure that the green performs to its highest standards.

The first thing is to make sure of, is that you are applying enough water every week and that means trying as best you can to keep a record of any rainfall and irrigation that is going onto the green.

Making irrigation management a priority in your bowling green maintenance program is crucial because in a typical dry week your green will lose the equivalent of 25mm of moisture through evaporation from the soil and transpiration from the grass plants ; please remember that this varies considerably around the country and will depend on things like temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, precipitation and of course your bowling green maintenance program.

This means that you should be aiming to get at least that amount back on.

In Performance Bowling Greens, a practical guide I go into detail about Soil Moisture Deficit and how to keep a water balance sheet for the most accurate and efficient way to manage irrigation and that is a really good method to use to get this right.

However, bowling green maintenance at the height of the summer relies a lot on feel for the soil as well and although I would always try to maintain a manageable Soil Moisture Deficit to encourage deeper rooting etc, it is more important right now to get on sufficient water to ensure your green plays consistently and to keep localised dry patch under control or hopefully at bay.

This means you should be aiming to get 25mm of water on in any dry week, making allowances for any rainfall you have had by reducing that amount accordingly.

The most common pump and sprinkler set ups for bowling green maintenance from most of the major irrigation manufacturers will put out approximately 1mm of water for each 2 minutes of system run time.

This means that you need to run the system for 2 minutes per head to replace 1mm of water lost. Remember that is “per head”.

So for a 25mm watering you need to run the system for 50 minutes per head during a 7 day period.

The most effective way to do this is to get this water on in as few applications as possible. Try to aim for 25mm over 3 nights. This is much more effective and makes much better use of precious water than 7 light applications where much of the water is lost to evaporation in the morning.

In my Bowling Green Maintenance book: Performance Greens, a practical guide I go into this subject in quite a bit of detail and lay out a plan that you can use to manage irrigation more effectively.