In the performance evaluation of the bowling green, one of the key factors is turf grass density which is important due to its ability to influence other performance factors and in monitoring bowling green and soil health generally.
Category: Greenkeeping
Turf Grass Uniformity. Performance Evaluation of the Bowling Green part 2.
The Performance Evaluation of the Bowling Green we embarked on last time relies on our ability to appraise a range of factors. Some of these are purely visual, while others are functional and can be quantified more readily. The trick lies in gaining the experience to merge the visual data with likely performance traits. Good old fashioned greenkeeping and the greenkeeper's "feel" for the turf are still as relevant as they've always been. Today we get started on the process of evaluating bowling green performance.
Healthy soil = healthy turf = healthy soil
A beautifully made film that explains how our turf grasses can interact with soil bacteria and fungi to build the perfect, disease free bowling green eco-system if only we’d let them.
So how can you make 2021 the year you finally make a start on this process at your green?
- Read Performance Bowling Greens and take advantage of the half price offer on Soil Analysis I’ll send you.
- Join my email list for access to regular updates, tips and newsletters
- Join the Bowls Central Academy
- Take advantage of the member only pricing on soil analysis and I’ll send you a report written specifically for your green.
- Start following the program I will detail for you and allow me to guide you through the process.
What will the results look like?
- Your green will improve in surface performance (faster, smoother and truer) year after year .
- Your green keeping costs will reduce.
- Your green will behave more consistently and problems like disease, moss and dry patch will disappear.
Other articles related to this:
Compost Tea, what is it and what can it do for your green?
Poa annua to fine grass transition
Get started now with a Soil Analysis
Performance Greenkeeping tasks for December
Essential Greenkeeping tasks for December include aeration, moss control, microbe boosting, disease prevention and keeping the surface clear of worm casts.
Feeding the Roses with Pound Notes
I have lost count of the words I have written, conversations I have had and arguments I have inadvertently started about one of greenkeepings greatest follies; routinely top-dressing your green with high sand content top dressing composts year in and year out. During my greenkeeping career over 3 decades and during countless hours of research I have been amazed to find clubs where 5, 7 or even 10 tonnes of top-dressing is being applied every autumn.
The really tragic thing about this practice is that in every case the club are paying for a contractor to hollow tine (core) the green and then apply this material.
Let me ask you where the cores from your green go after they are lifted?
I would hazard a guess that you either spread them on the rose beds around the green or give them away to members for their gardens.
Now hollow tining is typically carried out to a depth of 100mm (4 inches) and usually only 10-15 percent of the core is unwanted thatch.
So that means that 85-90% of each core is made up of all of the expensive top-dressing you have been applying over the years. No wonder the roses look so good!
With top-dressing now costing around £160 per tonne, its easy to see how hundreds of pounds are wasted like this on nearly every bowling green in the UK every year.
In addition to this there are a lot of negative agronomic impacts associated with this practice.
Localised Dry Patch is exacerbated by excessive sand content. This causes areas of the green surface to become impervious to water and dry out completely. The end result is an un-healthy, bumpy green which becomes susceptible to disease, moss infestation and loss of grass cover.
This is just one instance of good money being thrown after bad at just about every bowling green across the land.
Now this is not to say that top-dressing is never required or isn’t a valuable tool in the greenkeepers arsenal. There are times when top-dressing is absolutely the right thing to do.
However, there is generally no need to blindly apply several tonnes every autumn, only to keep the roses looking good!