Beyond plant growth, seaweed feeds the microbial community that underpins a healthy green. Polysaccharides like laminarin and fucoidan stimulate beneficial soil microbes, improve aggregation, and enhance nutrient cycling.
Category: Greenkeeping
Fixing low pH without Lime
As standard soil analysis offerings are generally obsessed with chemistry, a very low pH is often interpreted as a chemical imbalance, which, of course, it is. The question of why those acid cations are dominant on the soil colloid, remains unaddressed in most cases. Instead it seems that many advisers are jumping straight to the temporary, artificial correction advice to add lime, and as we have seen, for fine turf, that can be dangerous advice.
Fix your bowling green step 3
In parts 1 and 2 of this series on how to fix your bowling green, we discussed the process and importance of taking regular soil profile samples and discovered what the soil sample can actually tell us about the condition of the green. In part 3 John links this to demonstrate why each of the visual signals from the soil sample point clearly to one or more of the multitude of issues we experience on poorly performing greens. From disease outbreaks to skinning of heads and bad runs on rinks, the humble soil profile sample can tell us a lot about where we're going wrong and point to the answers that will help us create a performance bowling green in the near future.
Fix your bowling green step 2
In this article we take the soil samples you removed in Fix your bowling green Step1 and look more closely at them to discover what's going on under your green. This is one of the most valuable practices that any greenkeeper can undertake as it can reveal a wealth of information about the condition of your green that you could previously only guess at.
50 Years of Sand
From the very beginnings of the game of bowls, most clubs bowled on a green constructed largely of local top soil, built, prepared and seeded by the club members, perhaps with the help of a local gardener or farmer. Maintenance was largely mowing, turning the rinks on flat greens, keeping the surface clear of debris and worm casts and an occasional roll before a big match. In the autumn, a squad of members would descend on the green with forks to aerate or spike the green, before putting it to bed for the winter with a final cut and perhaps a bag of fertiliser.