Home » Greenkeeping » Page 25

Category: Greenkeeping

Over-seeding Fact and Fiction

Another very popular subject on this site is over-seeding of greens in Autumn.

Over-seeding is commonly carried out as part of the autumn bowling green maintenance and renovation program and is very often a disappointment.

You would expect this work to quickly fill in the bare patches and spaces in the sward left by  disease, localised dry patch and a host of other green problems, but this is very often not the case…why?

The answer to most disappointing results from over-seeding is “competition”. Competition from the mature, indigenous grasses whether fine or weed grasses like annual meadow grass usually reduces the success or survival rate from over-seeding to a very small percentage.

This quite often comes as a surprise to greenkeepers who have observed a very good “take” shortly after seeding (7-14 days). At this early stage it is not uncommon to see vigorous lines of dense new seedlings bursting forth from the green. This however, is usually a false reading.

At this very Read more

mair sand

Mair Sand

"Mair sand" was the call from Tom Morris the most famous and respected greenkeeper of them all, but have we misunderstood him? In reply to an article about fine, firm golf greens John Quinn highlights the similarities between the plight of golf and bowls greens and clears up the apparent contradiction between modern day problems with inert greens and the Tom Morris philosophy.

Read more

Compost Teas

Compost Tea Quick Start Guide

Compost Tea is a home made spray that is applied to fine turf to increase the micro life in the soil. It reintroduces missing microbes and boosts the populations of all of the main beneficial microbe groups such as bacteria, protozoa and the all important Fungi. Some of these help to degrade thatch, turning it into valuable humus, giving life and body to the depleted and often excessively sandy soil in many bowling greens.

Read more

Root mass is important for a healthy bowling green

Performance Greens Program – How to Get Started Fast and Cheap

With the new bowling season bearing down on us fast, I’ve received a good few emails and calls asking me whether or not it’s worth trying to start the Performance Greenkeeping Program from scratch so close to the new season?

Several of these contacts had the feeling that there was no point starting at this late stage and that it might be better to wait until the autumn, but all that would guarantee is yet another season of conventional greenkeeping and mediocre green performance.

The truth is that of course it would be great if every club could get in touch well in advance of the season opening day and request a full soil analysis and greenkeeping plan to work from, but all is not lost if you haven’t done that yet and there is a way you can usefully get started now.

Start Now

Spring Starter Pack

If you’ve been a reader of Bowls Central and/or Performance Bowling Greens for any length of time, you will know that the conditions that make greens perform badly, on the whole originate from decades of conventional greenkeeping.

This has featured excessive use of high salt mineral fertilisers, lawn sand, sulphates of iron and ammonia and in many cases the over use of sand top-dressings. To top it off, there has been a frequent need for fungicides to combat outbreaks of turf disease.

All of these problems combine to form what I’ve termed the Circle of Decline.

Circle of decline

Therefore changing this condition around is the answer and you can do that by starting to liven up your soil’s biology now.