“The water companies must sort out chronic storage shortage”
STEPHEN FELL, Lindum Turf
is not totally reliant on sales of turf to the South East, and in other areas, sales are not affected. However, our distributors in the affected areas have been hit hard.” “The outlook in those
areas is bad until the autumn when you can rely on more suitable conditions for turf laying without reliance on hosepipe water. This situation is likely to be a continuing feature for future years until water companies sort out chronic storage shortage. This will put big pressure to compress the turf laying season into autumn and winter. As a supplier I don’t have a problem with that although housing development companies would be faced with selling houses in the summer with the promise of a lawn later.” For many though, the
prospect of a long continuing drought could signal the end of the British lawn as we know it.
“I do think that the
traditional English lawn will change in the future,” says Chris Carr from Q Lawns. “I think we’ll see fewer fine- leaved grasses and more of the robust, disease resistant varieties. We will be less inclined towards really close mowing, instead going for a slightly longer, lusher sward that doesn’t need such intensive care and keeps its colour better and for longer. There will never be a true replacement for the lawn though. Gravel, decking, paving etc, just doesn’t have the same charm and can never be an adequate substitute for the relaxing atmosphere created by a sward of healthy green
grass.” However, it won’t be just lawns that are affected. Sports pitches, playing pitches and other green areas for leisure use will be forced to have a re-think and develop varieties that are better at coping with stressful situations and are more water efficient in the short term. “I do think that as new varieties are developed the buyer will have more choice,” he adds. “Years ago, one could buy turf. That’s it, just turf, an indeterminate mixture of herbage that had been subjected to little management or quality control, but today there are dozens of seedmixes to choose from and thanks to the STRI and the TGA it’s possible to make informed choices. STRI can tell they buyer how a variety behaves in terms of disease resistance,
summer and winter colour, wear tolerance, reaction to close mowing etc and the TGA Standard will ensure that the buyer receives what he is expecting. With all that information and choice, the buyer can then make his own decisions on whether to choose fineness of leaf over drought tolerance.” So that’s the message from the industry. A collision with the water companies is inevitable, sales are likely to be hit hard but turf manufacturers will need to adapt, and adapt quickly, if they and the great British lawn are to have a future.
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email:
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www.beamrider.org.uk
BeamRider 17
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