For Tividale Football Club’s volunteer groundsman CHRIS CHARLES
Long Hot
YET again, here we are in the middle of a long dry spell that hopefully will come to an end very soon. I suspect that a lot of people reading this will feel the same, especially if you have inadequate irrigation at your disposal as I do. I would even suggest that there are some out there who have none whatsoever. Am I the only one at my club who is praying for rain!!
I write this as a Groundsman at a non league football club here in the Black Country. I have worked at Tividale FC for nearly five years now and hope that some good may come of it in terms of bringing to the fore irrigation problems that we, and others face.
AROUND the same time last year we went through a similar spell with drought conditions prevailing. With two weeks to go before the first friendly I was panicking as the pitch was in an awful condition, even though a good quality end of season renovation programme had been carried out. It was difficult to apply fertiliser when necessary to help thicken the sward, as I only have a simple impact sprinkler situated on a sledge to irrigate, should the drought conditions continue. I have seen pitches burnt due to them being fertilised without adequate irrigation afterwards. More on the sprinkler issue later. Fortunately the weather did break with rain eventually coming at the right time and all was well with the pitch subsequently. I decided to modify my renovation plan for this year, fearing the worst again, with long dry spells forecast by some weather experts. Soil sample results came back showing adequate phosphate levels but low levels of potassium. I decided to purchase 12 bags of Scotts
Irrigation ‘system’ in action!! Bless her!
SUMMERS Are a pain in the - - - -
20:0:21 controlled release fertiliser that would potentially feed the grass throughout the close season. Although this type of fertiliser is generally more costly, it meant that at least I could get away with applying once instead of the two applications that I had carried out in previous years. The idea being that the fertiliser would break down and feed the grass as and when the weather changed, thereby me not having to worry unduly about the forecasted dry weather. Initially, I applied 12 bags of a Scotts 9:7:7 fertiliser just to kick things off following top dressing and seeding, then followed up two weeks later with the application of the 20:0:21. After an initial colour up and growth spurt, one of the dry spells hit and the grass did absolutely nothing. I can only really concentrate on watering the more important areas such as the goalmouths and centre areas due to the sprinkler that I have. That, and the fact that our club is metered, so that is always on my
Automatic timer. Basic but what a Godsend
mind as far as costs are concerned. A club like ours have to watch every penny. These areas then picked up well and the sward began to thicken. However, the rest of the pitch was suffering greatly. Due to the fact that I had my 36 inch Dennis in for repairs, I was cutting the pitch with my 4 foot Wessex rotary mower with the height of cut set at about 2 inches (I was glad when my Dennis returned, as the lack of exercise had done my weight no good whatsoever!). This was ideal at the time as the grass started to get stalky as it always does at that time of the year. This just led to the grass being flattened as cells within the grass remained flaccid.
This went on for quite a while. Like last year, it became very apparent where the drains are as areas of grass began yellowing and dying back. What made matters worse was the fact that any weak areas, that I seeded by hand, struggled to establish because pigeons were gorging themselves on the seed. Some ate that much seed that they could hardly take off!! That may bring a smile to some reading this but I can assure you that they, along with the dry spells, are a constant hindrance to me and my pitch. With the annual pigeon problems in mind I convinced the club to allow me to get a better quality grass seed for renovation that germinates quickly. It, like the fertiliser, was more costly but I felt that it was vital to get seed establishment as soon as possible. I therefore purchased Advanta MM60 grass seed. It did “exactly what it said on the tin” by germinating in five days. This obviously helped with the pigeon problems to a degree.
Just when I thought that the pitch was going to be worse than last year in terms
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