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Slit tining bowls greens

Last week I had a guy tell me that slit tining is old fashioned and worthless in bowling green maintenance.

In its place he offered deep solid tining (usually referred to as verti-draining). This involves taking a tractor onto the bowling green and bursting vertical holes into the green at close spacing to a depth of 12 inches.

My answer to this was two-fold:

  1. Electric light, television, penicillin, the internal combustion engine and potatoes are old fashioned too.
  2. Most bowling greens were built with only 6-8 inches of topsoil.

Because something is “old fashioned” doesn’t mean it’s of no use. In fact if something “old fashioned” is still around it’s usually because it’s still very useful.

Deep (6-8”) slit tining your bowling green continually (twice a month isn’t too much) throughout the winter months is the single most effective way to safely relieve compaction.

Your green becomes increasingly compacted as the season goes on due to the downward pressure of feet and machinery. The winter is the only time you can work on this effectively.

Forcefully penetrating the layers below the rootzone by means of a deep vertical solid tiner is damaging to the underlying construction and drainage principles of the green and even one operation can cause damage that might take years to become fully apparent. This usually results in the incumbent greenkeeper being fired for something he had nothing to do with because no one can believe that something that was done to the green years ago could cause problems that didn’t surface until so much later. In a reflective moment I wrote a little story about this a while ago. You can read it here.

The potential for damage is explained in detail in Performance Bowling Greens and Slit tining along with other essential winter maintenance is discussed in the Autumn/Winter Maintenance Guide.

Traditional Bowls Green Aeration

Rob emailed with an interesting question about using the old fashioned forking method of aeration during periods when the green is excessively wet, like now probably in many parts. Here is Rob’s full question and my reply to him earlier. If anybody has views on this subject please feel free to share:

Do you know anything about the traditional ‘raise forking’ or ‘graip’ aeration methods that were used? What kind of forks were used? (straight? curved? how thick were the prongs?) and how deep did the go down ? etc.

I am interested in such traditional techniques and yet cannot find out any information about it?

After the snow the greens are absolutely soaked through and I wondered if trying this traditional technique might dry them out with minimum disturbance?

Well, although I have used the method (under duress) in the past, I didn’t have all of the answers I would have liked for Rob:

Hi Rob and Happy New Year

I am not aware of any special equipment for this, but I have done it.

Usually this was with a normal garden fork; the technique was to work backwards and push the fork in as far as possible at intervals equivalent to the space between the tines on the fork so as to create a square hole pattern.

After pushing the fork in to full depth (6 to 8 inches) you wiggled it about and heaved it backwards slightly before removing and moving on to the next.

Back-breaking and very labour intensive mind you.

Before going to extreme measures it might be worth checking that the ground isn’t still frozen at some point below as this might be causing the slow down in drainage.

During the winter I recommend using a deep slit tiner as often as possible, which automates this procedure to some extent and has a very good effect on compaction related problems like this.

You can find articles on this here:

Last week I shared some links to resources including the most suitable machinery for this work; you can see that article here:

If any reader has some light to shed on this subject then I would be very interested to hear it.

John

Performance Bowls Greens-Making Best Use of Winter

Time is marching on and most greens have had their autumn renovation works completed and the greens have been “put to bed”, which is my least favourite phrase in bowling green maintenance.

There should be no question of putting a green to bed for winter, as the next few months are the most vital of times for starting your journey towards a performance bowling green.

Bowling green maintenance has traditionally concentrated on the bowling season and greens have to a large extent been almost neglected during the winter.

The 2 main problems that greens suffers from and which are the root cause of almost all of the difficulties we encounter on greens can only really be tackled head on during the winter.

First among these is thatch and if there is an excessive build up of thatch on your green you should be taking appropriate action now to reduce this mechanically before it gets too cold.

The remainder of the winter right up to March or thereabouts should be peak compaction relief time; this is the only time when you can tackle it properly and the best technique to use is pedestrian, deep slit tining.

So if you are not out doing this now, don’t be surprised if your green isn’t performing very well next season.

The trouble with neglecting this work is that it just can’t be caught up with again during the season, which results in a very early deterioration in condition once the season is underway; in many cases the green doesn’t really get growing until well into the late spring period. Meantime the green is being subjected to further compaction and wear at a time when recovery is limited due to cold soil and weather. If this is combined with last year’s compaction and thatch which hasn’t been dealt with properly in the close season then tgreen can deteriorate beyond recovery very early in the season.

Let’s re-cap on some of the major problems that arise from neglecting this work:

Flooding, puddles, un-even playing surface, Localised Dry Patch, bare areas, poor use of fertiliser/increased fertiliser requirements, disease, more pesticide required, more water required, moss, weeds, poor runs, slow green surface, inconsistent rinks, unhappy members etc.

Now is the time to be getting on with the early stages of renovation which will lead to a performance bowling green for your club in the future.