Home » thatch » Page 4

Tag: thatch

Deal with thatch and compaction Now

Regular readers of my articles will know my views on bowling green maintenance problems; essentially there are only 2 that you have to worry about.

Everything else that goes wrong with greens is a symptom of these big 2 issues or indeed a symptom of the commonly held views on how to tackle the big 2.

What are the big 2?:

  1. Thatch: the build up of dead shoots, roots and debris on the turf surface that can get out of hand very quickly and cause or contribute to a huge number of problems. See my article on the circle of decline here
  2. Compaction: the squeezing of air out of the soil profile by foot and maintenance traffic.

Why I am banging on about this again?

Well hopefully your autumn and winter program is fully geared up to dealing with these two big issues.

By now I hope you have undertaken any major thatch removal work required and that you are now embarking on “an all winter long” attack on compaction.

Regular deep slit tining is the best way to relieve compaction; please note this is not a one off job regardless of how impressive the machine used.

It is necessary to continually slit tine the green through the winter to a depth of 150mm or deeper if you can.

Once a week isn’t too much, twice a month is more typical; stop during frost or excessively wet conditions but pick it up again as soon as possible afterwards.

For a full appraisal of essential winter maintenance tasks for your bowling green the Autumn/Winter report is still available at half price:

Autumn and Winter Bowling Green Maintenance Guide
Autumn and Winter Bowling Green Maintenance Guide
The ultimate guide to Autumn Renovation and Winter Bowling Green Maintenance detailing the essential maintenance your bowling green needs through this most critical of maintenance seasons. What you do now will determine how the green performs next season. INSTANT DOWNLOAD ebook more details
Price: £9.97

Bowls Green Maintenance Basics-Green Speed

There are some less than obvious essentials required to achieve consistently agreeable Green Speed

The great debate about green speed has raged on since the beginning of the game. But what are the factors known to affect green speed?

In order of their impact on green speed these are the top 7 factors that you should bear in mind. Obviously there are others such as weather patterns, level of play etc, but these are largely out of the greenkeepers control and in any case do not figure highly in green speed management.

Thatch Layer Control and Management; this means knowing the thatch levels on your green and having a feel for how quickly thatch builds up at each point in the year.

Typically thatch will be much quicker to build up in the main growing season and it can easily take greenkeepers by surprise if they don’t keep a watchful eye on the situation.

Reducing a troublesome thatch layer significantly is a job best left for the autumn when severe measures can more safely be taken, but following the Performance Greens program will ensure that you are minimising the occurrence of new thatch through the production and maintenance of a healthy living rootzone and turf.

You can find more in-depth articles on thatch here.
Compaction Control and Relief; Second only to thatch in causing green problems, Compaction is a Read more

Bowls Green Spiking

Slit tining, solid tining, hollow tining, verti-draining. All of these terms seem to be interchangeable with the word “Spiking” so it can be confusing for the new greenkeeper or green convenor to know what the best approach is at any given time to do the best for their green.

All of these terms relate to the aeration or introduction of air in the green. They all do this by making holes of one kind or another.

When I refer to spiking I usually mean “slit tining” and this is still the best thing you can do to your green through the winter months to relieve the compaction that has built up over the playing season and to keep the green surface open to allow drainage of surface water.

You can get much more detail on the aims of aeration and the techniques used here.

What does top dressing a bowls green do?

In spite of the common misconception that it does a lot of good and that it is an essential part of annual bowling green maintenance, in broad terms it does very little of good towards levelling the surface, drains club’s of much needed cash and actually causes untold damage to the green eco-system over time.

There are many more articles detailing the reasons for this conclusion here.

Autumn and winter bowls green maintenance

We are getting an increasing number of enquiries about the correct process for Autumn bowling green maintenance at the moment.

Here are my top 10 tips for autumn maintenance:

  1. DO NOT TOPDRESS
  2. Remove as much thatch as possible.
  3. Create air space in the top 100mm of the green
  4. Relieve Compaction
  5. Treat LDP by applying wetting agent
  6. Renovate heads to ensure recovery for next year
  7. Improve CEC on overly sandy soils by introducing zeolite
  8. Boost potassium levels
  9. If over-seeding, also give some Phosphorous
  10. Draw up a program of work to carry on right through the winter months. Don’t “put your green to bed”

Bio Liquid Fertilisers- their role in Performance Bowls Greens

I often mention that for a Performance Bowling Green, you should be using Bio Liquid Fertilisers and in an earlier article I briefly discussed some of the key characteristics exhibited by what I would term a Performance Green and these were:

  1. A green that performs well from the get go every year.
  2. A green that is consistent throughout the season
  3. A green that is economical to maintain
  4. A green that fights off disease, drought and cold largely on its own.
  5. A green that your members will relish playing on

I then went on to give a couple of hints for starting the transition from a conventionally maintained green to a Performance Green. These were to stop routinely applying sand based top-dressing and to start as soon as possible to use Bio-Liquid fertilisers throughout the growing season.

The top-dressing debate has raged on this site for a long time now and I think I’ve been joined by a few converts along the way. However, I do understand how difficult it is to be the man driving against the traffic on an apparently one way street!

So with top-dressing already enjoying quite a bit of coverage on the site, I will leave it aside for the moment to concentrate on my other hint, which was the use of Bio-Liquid fertilisers.

But, first of all; what on earth are Bio Liquid Fertilisers?

A Bio (biological fertiliser) is one which contains carbohydrates in addition to the stated nutrients (N.P.K) often derived from minerals. The fertiliser can also contain other organic nutrients, amino acids etc.

Bio Fertilisers, of course, provide the plants with the basic building blocks we expect from fertilisers in the form of the essential soil nutrients, but the carbohydrate portion also nourishes the soil micro life (micro-organisms). This results in healthy plants and a healthy soil which allows us to produce better bowling surfaces consistently and predictably.

Research (Parent 1996) has shown that an active microbial flora means healthy plants, stable structures in the growth mass, reduced leaching of nutrients, and increased availability of a range of nutrients. Studies have also shown that micro-organisms – entirely naturally – produce antibiotics and vitamins which are actively absorbed by the plants.

As greenkeepers then, we should spend as much time thinking about the health of the soil as we do about achieving a fast, smooth surface as the two are inextricably linked. A simple and effective way of improving conditions for the micro life is to add carbohydrates, as a lack of available carbohydrates is the most limiting factor for the growth of soil micro-organisms (Parent 1996).

In addition to the above an active soil micro life is of major significance, as the micro-organisms contribute to the formation of stable soil aggregates via the discharge of polysaccharides. These are formed via adsorption of polysaccharides, which attach to clay particles. This is important on all greens, but the process is especially significant on sandy greens with low Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC), as it helps to reduce the leaching of nitrogen from the soil.

These polysaccharides form compounds with iron, aluminium, zinc and copper, and make them more available to the grass.

The micro-organisms also provide an invaluable service in breaking down organic material, which increases the breakdown of the thatch layer. This breaking down (mineralisation) releases nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, iron and other substances for the benefit of the plants.

With their content of carbohydrates, Bio fertilisers favour an active microbial flora. In comparison with traditional inorganic and organic fertilisers, this makes it easy for the greenkeeper to reduce the overall application rate of a range of nutrients, including nitrogen, allowing us to maintain our greens more economically and in a more environmentally aware manner.

We’ve seen that readily available carbohydrates are of major importance for the soil micro life, but the grasses also benefit directly from the application of carbohydrates – in particular, sucrose – which is available to them, as these can be absorbed to a minor extent directly by the leaves (Parent 1996).

A carbohydrate store in the plant is important throughout the entire growth season, as carbohydrates act as a direct source of energy in re-growth if/when the grass is exposed to injury, disease, stress and wear. The plant’s carbohydrate content is also an extremely important factor in the grasses ability to survive the winter (Beard 1973).

 

Bio Liquid Fertilisers from Bowls Central

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.