With over fifty professional fixtures each season Reading FC’s BRUCE ELLIOTT was struggling to maintain a quality playing surface. Drastic measures were required. Bruce takes up the story.
EADING!
I sat down with our consultant, John Hacker from PSD, to discuss what we thought the problems were and how we could tackle them. We came to the conclusion that there were a number of issues that needed addressing. Firstly, the root-zone seemed to have an uneven distribution of fine particles within it, with a lot of these particles finding their way to the surface and capping it off. The lower root- zone was also very compact and was slowing up percolation rates. The root-zone varied in depth across the site which led to critical tension issues with the moisture not being able to freely drain away. Finally, the subsidence in the surface had led to uneven areas across the
playing surface which was starting to affect the way the pitch played. We were also unsure how this subsidence was affecting the drainage pipes and under soil heating pipes. It would be natural to assume that if the playing surface had sunk then so had the pipework.
The first thing we did to
address some of these problems was during last summers renovation period when we applied ten tonnes of Profile Greens from Rigby Taylor and one tonne of Trucal Calcium which we mixed into the upper root-zone. During the season we
increased our aeration programme and used a number of penetrative wetting
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