MEAD
JAMES MEAD is a great believer in the art of Groundsmanship and is putting it in to practice at Rugby School
THIRTEEN months on from my appointment as Head Groundsman at Rugby School I could not have asked for a better year in grounds maintenance terms. The weather, commitment of the staff and the support of the governing bodies at Rugby School have been excellent. We have achieved a great deal in maintenance terms in such a short period of time. I am a great believer in the art of Groundmanship principles and practices. Always striving to ensure that we are able to access the best equipment, labour, products and services to maximise the potential of the sports grounds and gardens. Arriving in September allowed me the opportunity to get stuck into some serious autumn renovations on most of the facilities at the school. Beginning with the cricket tables and outfields. We used a combination of techniques. Some squares we Koroed off, removing the top 20mm of surface vegetation, imported some new loam and re-levelled. Others were heavily scarified using the Graden, getting it to go as deep as we could without causing too much disruption. The squares were top dressed with
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Banbury loam and overseeded with Rigby Taylor Mascot R9 rye grass mixtures. We increased the
frequency of aeration on the cricket tables getting plenty of air movement in the soil profile during the early part of the winter months. We also implemented
a renovation programme on the main campus rugby pitches which includes the William Webb Ellis rugby pitch. Again, we wanted to remove as much weak and straggly growth from the sward, this time using an Amazone. We then top dressed using a 70/30 rootzone mix, then over seeded with Rigby Taylor’s R14. We continued to oversow all pitches while temperatures remained favourable for seed germination. My aim was to encourage plenty of new growth to infill the bare areas I had inherited. We also instigated a programme of aeration using a newly purchased soil reliever and tractor unit
the new Head Groundsman at Rugby School
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