Already the relatively dry April and start to May has seen bowling greens suffering from Localised Dry Patch (LDP).
As we have discussed many times on this site before, this condition is a major problem for bowling clubs throughout the UK and if your bowling green is aready showing the tell tale signs then you need to take rapid and relentless action to avoid major disruption to your bowling green surface this season.
Meantime for greens already showing signs of the problem here is my Read more
We have had a few queries asking about thatch; actually a few readers asking for a definitive description of thatch and its associated problems, so here it is:
What is it?
Thatch is the name given to the mat of dead roots and shoots that accumulates on the surface of the green. Where moisture, nutrition and cultural practices are optimised for the desired grasses, thatch rarely becomes a problem. However, when soil air content is low, or if drainage is poor and the fertiliser program is not optimised for the prevailing conditions, thatch can become a problem. In severe cases the major root mass might only exist within this layer and this leaves the green susceptible to drying out in summer and to the heads “skinning” (loss of turf cover) in wet weather. Thatch is also a major contributor in the Read more
We spike to alleviate compaction and introduce more air into the soil.
Ok, our first web search term question. I’ll try to follow this format for all questions, i.e. the question will be the title of the post, there will be a concise, one sentence answer in block quotes for those in a hurry and then we’ll look a bit more in-depth for those who want more detail.
Comments of course will be welcome as always, so feel free to ask questions, or throw in your contribution.
OK, so the first one is a common one:
First of all let’s explain what the term “spike” means.
Spiking is a generic term used to describe Read more
Yes I’ve come over all Latin today; and no, it’s not because I can’t believe my old jeep sailed through its MOT yet again last week!
Even the garage owner was amazed that he couldn’t find anything wrong with it.
He sent me off with “I’ll get you next year!”
No, the Latin was inspired by a photo I received from a regular reader who sent it in to illustrate a problem he had on his green with red-thread.
However, the reason for this post is not to discuss Latin, or Red-Thread for that matter.
The clump of grass in the centre of the photo is annual meadow grass, or Poa annua to use its botanic name.
It’s not that we greenkeepers are more cultured than the average man in the street, more to do with college lecturers who insisted that we learned to identify and remember the botanic names for hundreds of grasses, trees, shrubs and weeds.
Incidentally this came in useful when I was leaving the MOT station, as I casually threw in a final, killer comment of “you need to get your Tarixicum officianale (dandelion) sprayed before it takes over the yard!”
Back to the clump of meadow grass.
This is actually a weed ( an unwanted plant in its current state and location) as we are really trying to create and maintain a sward of finer fescue and bent grasses for the best bowling surfaces.
Unfortunately, almost (probably all) all of the bowling greens in the UK will be infested with this grass.
Even newly built greens constructed on sterile rootzone material will show signs of this weed within 2 years as its seed blows in from the surrounding area.
From the picture you can see it at its worst aesthetically, which it usually is at this time of year. Right through May and June it will show up as unsightly clumps of lime green grass which contrasts vividly with the other darker green species.
Also at this time it will be seeding like mad.
The visual problem recedes as the summer progresses, but it does actually produce seed all year round.
Scarifying, verti-cutting and close mowing are of minimal value in removing the seed heads and to some extent can actually help annual meadow grass to thrive in the summer.
This is because it has a very low and prostrate growth habit which keeps the majority of the plant including seed heads below the cutting blades.
Excessive scarification and verti-cutting can actually weaken the finer fescue grass leaving the annual meadow grass with a stronger chance of survival.
It does have one Achilles heel and that is water.
Poa annua is a very shallow rooting grass and the Performance Greens program is designed to allow greenkeepers to keep the surface of their greens a little drier than most, thus putting the weed grass under pressure.
This is achieved by managing irrigation to ensure that the green is watered deeply, but irregularly which also has the effect of encouraging deeper rooting of the finer, desirable grasses.
The program also calls for a more sensible approach to cutting heights, whilst using other methods to achieve green speed. This allows the finer grasses to put down even deeper roots and also strengthens plants against drought and wear.
Poa annua is however likely to be with us ad infinitum as it is a very adaptable grass.
This adaptability is actually a good thing in the end as over time the grass becomes finer and blends in more readily with the finer grasses.
It is perfectly feasible still, however, to have a green that is predominantly fine and to keep Poa annua under control over the long term by following a sensible program that encourages the development of a healthy living soil which in turn will support a strong and dense sward of finer grass.
Last week’s post on green-speed has raised a few questions, a lot of them along the lines of
“How can we afford to cut the green 7 days a week?”
In the introduction to my book Performance Bowling Greens I speak about the danger of traditions.
Traditions are funny things, because they don’t actually seem to need to be very old, or for that matter very sensible for them to take hold; they only need a bit of support from a few people and Bingo! They are “new” traditions.
One of the quirkiest? Cutting the green on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, usually early in the morning. Why has this become a tradition at many clubs?
Well it probably boils down to cost mainly and perhaps convenience and possibly a little bit of misunderstanding of the growth pattern of greens.
Following this cutting plan those playing on Monday evening, Tuesday, Wednesday evening, Thursday, Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday are not seeing or playing the green at anything near its best!
That leaves a lot of potentially dissatisfied customers!
So in answer to the question at the beginning, another question:
How can you afford not to?
However, in Bowling Club Turnaround terms remember dissatisfaction can actually be a good thing as it gives you a huge opportunity to move things to a better state and make an overall positive gain from an otherwise negative situation.
Bird Damage to Bowls Greens is a common issue faced by greenkeepers. A few readers have been writing in to ask about dealing with birds digging up their greens and quite rightly enquiring as to what can be done to control the bird activity.
Well, although there are occasions when birds will dig up turf on speculation that there might be some food, its unusual for them to cause widespread damage to large areas of the green unless they have a dead cert food supply.
Even though there might not be any obvious signs of grubs or insects, if there is significant bird activity (especially during mild spells) then it is also likely that leatherjackets are active.
Leatherjackets are the larvae of the Crane Fly (Daddy Long Legs) and they are voracious consumers of turf roots. They will usually continue to feed on grass roots right through the winter period.
If bird activity is very localised on just a few small areas of the green this might be explained by mossy turf as it easy to dig up, so if you have areas of moss this might explain the problem too.
I am often asked help o how to deal with the birds in these cases, how to keep them off the turf or to scare them away. However, in most cases it is important to remember that the birds are only the messengers, bringing you news and some measure of control over a very serious problem for your green.
The leatherjackets will do a huge amount of harm to your green, much more then the damage caused by the birds. Once a tribe of leatherjackets has munched its way across your green you could lose large areas of turf as there are no longer any significant roots left. This manifests itself as large areas of yellowing turf.
So the advice is:
On the subject of ecological greenkeeping, here is how one golf course manager in Canada deals with insect problems:
My post yesterday looked at the huge extent to which the top 100mm (4inches) of our greens have been subjected to sand over the previous 3 or 4 decades.
Today I’d like to elaborate a little on my thinking about taking a green from that state to one of High Performance.
The recovery process is based on encouraging that same top 100mm to return to a state that is akin to a natural, healthy living soil. This of course takes time as we are actually waiting for nature to produce more organic matter to ameliorate the sand to bring the soil back to a state where it can support a large, thriving population of soil microbes.
If you imagine my sketch of the “Circle of Decline” as a water wheel spinning fiercely in a clockwise direction; in other words out of control due to inappropriate maintenance. Each application of sand, pesticide, excessive N fertiliser, etc only serves to set the wheel spinning ever faster in the wrong direction.
The performance greens program is aiming to make the wheel turn in the opposite direction so a lot of the effort at the beginning is simply to slow the wheel down gradually until it is eventually stopped. The program then needs to get the wheel to start turning in the other direction.
Once it starts to turn in the right direction every bit of the correct maintenance program just makes it go faster and faster, so although the recovery process is slow at first, it builds very quickly once things are turned around.
We then start to see the action of what I am going to call the Circle of Improvement due to lack of imagination!
Every ounce of new Read more
Sounds unlikely doesn’t it?
The fact is that many clubs could save between £750 and £1000 in the coming month and would actively be improving their green. You know by now what I am talking about if you are regular reader.
Incidentally, welcome to all of our new readers this month!
On most greens the addition of any more sand based top-dressing is actually harmful. This doesn’t necessarily apply to all greens, just most of them.
Leaving this out of the program will result in big savings in the region of those mentioned above.
Next, a prevalent practice used in our industry Read more
With the end of the bowling season in clear sight, many clubs will have acquired a familiar temporary feature over by the roadside hedge somewhere. If you look closely there will probably be a pallet or five of bagged top-dressing, ready to go on the green as part of the autumn renovation program.
The bags might be plain or they might be covered in text and graphics proclaiming all of the benefits for your turf that are held within.
They are essentially Trojan Horses, in that they appear to be bearing good news and gifts, but they are actually full of sand (up to 90%) and represent the continued insistence of many clubs and consultants to pursue a program of desertification of bowling greens in the UK.
When your green was first constructed, it probably had an 8-10” (200-250mm) deep layer of topsoil (rootzone). An average bulk density for topsoil would be around 1.6 tonnes/m3. If we say that the average green is 36m X 36m we get an area of 1296m2. The volume of soil required to fill this is calculated thus:
1296 X 0.25 = 324m3
Using our bulk density average of 1.6 we can calculate weight of soil required as follows:
324 X 1.6 = 518 Tonnes. So our average green was built using approximately 518 tonnes of topsoil.
Most hollow tining operations can penetrate the soil to 4 inches (100mm) and this is usually used in conjunction with top-dressing. This then means that top-dressing operations have been concentrated on about 40% of the actual soil used to build the green (the top 4 inches). 40% of 518 tonnes is 207 tonnes.
30 years of top-dressing with 5 tonnes of material each time is equal to applying 150 tonnes of highly sandy material and this disregards the soil being removed by the hollow tiner! This also assumes that your club only jumped on the train to la la land in the 1980’s; many have been at it for at least a decade before that. I also know of some greens where they are routinely throwing 10 tonnes of straight sand on every year, so these figures are only averages and are probably leaning towards the less crazy end of the spectrum.
Is it any wonder then that greens suffer from localised dry patch, excessive thatch build up, powder dry inert soil, compaction, disease, low microbe populations etc, when almost all of the top 4 inches of the green has been replaced by sand?
If this is the plan for your club this autumn it would be better for your green, if you just do nothing. Yes, even neglecting the green and failing to undertake any autumn renovation would be much less harmful to the long term health and performance of the green than following this program.
The somewhat uncomfortable truth is that we as greenkeepers are actually part of the massive worldwide agriculture industry.
Very few products or technologies ever see the light of day based purely on the needs of bowling clubs or even the much larger golf segment of the fine turf and sports industry.
No, most of the things we use are direct descendants of agricultural or other industrial products or at least are supported by agriculture’s huge global enterprise.
Every chemical pesticide we use is a direct copy of a product which has a use in growing crops; every fertiliser product is a result of agricultural research and manufacturing processes; even our mowers are based on a machine originally used for trimming in the massive Victorian carpet and textile industry.
Its very interesting to see as part of this discussion the current and on-going dilemma that faces farming. The burgeoning world population means that we have to grow more and more food on fewer and fewer hectares of ground. This ensures that agriculture will continue to be a cutting edge area of scientific research and that as a result we can look forward to continued and constant enticement to try out a multitude of new products and techniques on our bowls greens in the future.
However, there is one train of thought in agriculture and in society in general that is much closer to the one we need to nurture for the assured excellence of our bowls greens in the future, and that is ecological sustainability.
To accompany this goal of sustainability within agriculture there is a renewed interest in the common sense concept of healthy living soil and that is where we need to start on our road to an excellent,
high performance bowling green.
Incidentally, there is an excellent program on the BBC iplayer that explains the mechanics of soil ecology very well. You can still access it here.
