Over the next few weeks I will publish a few articles to help you to evaluate
your turf with an aim to improving its performance over the long term.
Within this series I will demonstrate how it is possible to formulate “a theory of everything” for want of a better name, that can guide us in the right direction if we care to listen and take note for the improvement of turf performance for bowling or sports in general.
Over the series we will see how all of the available methods of evaluation point by and large to the same root causes and that to improve turf performance we actually have to improve turf and soil health.
The first of these qualities is Uniformity which is an estimate of the even appearance of a turf.
High quality turf should be uniform in appearance. The presence of bare areas, weeds, blemishes due to insect or disease injury, or an irregular growth habit lowers the level of turf grass quality.
A visual estimate is the most representative measure available for the evaluation of turf uniformity.
Of course, this visual estimate is subjective so its important not to make this your only method of turf appraisal.
There is a trick you can use to reduce the subjective nature of such measurements. Its not fool proof, but if you use it just for your own appraisal then it can help you to keep track of the visual uniformity of your turf over time.
By using the -5 to +5 scale, where 0 is average, -5 is terrible and +5 is excellent you can keep track of uniformity not only over the long term but also from season to season.
But what affects uniformity?
Uniformity is compromised when there are bare or week areas in your turf caused by disease injury, insect damage, weeds, rogue grass species, un-managed growth habits in the turf such as sideways growth.
So uniformity is judged by the relative density and upright growth habit of the desirable grasses and the relative presence of bare areas, blemishes, differences in colour across the green, inappropriate plant species including weed grasses.
Next time we will look at Turf Density.
Photo thanks to: stu mayhew via Compfight