In the rush to get the green ready for the new season, its sometimes easy to overlook the small and seemingly less significant jobs around the green.
However, these can be very important and can save you a lot of problems later and they help make the place look, play and feel better for opening day.
Soil sampling will reveal powder dry soil. Unsightly brown patches of turf start to spread over most of the green. The turf on these areas recedes causing a bumpy surface and in most cases the weakened grass will be taken over by moss. But what can be done to cure the problem?
The plant available water in bowling greens is determined by the physical characteristics of the soil. Most importantly the soil texture dictates the relative percentages of Macro, Meso and Micro pore space in the soil. This soil porosity also dictates the rate at which the green will drain. The balance between drainage and plant available water is one of the most critical components of a performance bowling green maintenance program. Here then is the very crux of all those arguments about top-dressing!
During dry and hot weather the need to water your green properly can't be over emphasised. Although it can be tempting to let the green burn to achieve speed, this can turn to disaster and cause the green to fail later in the season.
Performance turf requires heat and moisture and it is inevitable that you will have to turn to your irrigation system at this time to keep your green’s progress moving forward. Failure to keep up now could result in a disastrous season later on when the green dries out unevenly, succumbs to Localised Dry patch or simply doesn’t perform due to a lack of moisture early in the season.
