In 2006 Plymouth Cricket Club took over the Mount Wise ground, a former Ministry of Defence facility. Badly negleted, the first priority was to get the wicket playable for that season. But how are things progressing one year on?
JON LAWRENCE reports
Matters ARISING!
WELL it’s now one year on from when we took on our second ground, the former MOD facility, Mount Wise, and my how things have changed. Last season the tracks were very variable in bounce, at times verging on being outright dangerous. When the square dried out there were canyons in it - to call them cracks doesn’t really do them justice! We had some soil samples taken and, apart from pointing out the obvious 30mm of thatch, we found that there was 43% clay content - yes forty three percent! We’ve found out that, when originally built, the square was specified as an emergency helicopter landing pad for use with the communications centre which is located beneath parts of the outfield! We’re guessing that this accounts for the unusually high clay content. We were hoping to Koro off the top of the square at the end of the 2006 season but, due to planning problems, the lease that we needed in order to obtain the funding wasn’t in place - and unfortunately, it still isn’t (as of May 2007). So, we took the decision to hire in a linear aerator - interesting question being at what point does a scarifier become a linear aerator? We got in an
Allen V star from Devon Garden Machinery (DGM) in Torquay, our local (ish) dealers. I expected to take a lot of dross out of the surface, but I wasn’t quite prepared for just how much. I programmed the work for a Wednesday and Thursday which left us the weekend free for overseeding, top dressing and levelling. We had quite a few offers of assistance but, to be honest, scarifiying isn’t really something that is suitable for more than two people (in my opinion). One person walks behind the scarifier and another goes along picking up the arisings afterwards - it’s only tiring because of the distance you walk. We did three complete passes over my square and took out some 20 to 25 cubic metres of dross. I would have liked to do another couple of passes, but setting the machine to go in 1 to 1.5 inches into the ground slowed the process down so much that there simply wasn’t time to do any more. The V Star needed to be moved to the first XI ground in order to get a couple of passes in there. DGM were very accommodating by leaving it until 8pm before collecting the machine.
I knew that we were going to take a lot out of the surface which was going to
Jon Lawrence and Ken Wheaton
reek havoc with the levels so, after discussion with our Head Groundsman, Ken Wheaton, I took the decision to put quite a lot of loam back onto the square - some 18 bags per track. I achieved a complete winter aeration programme to help ameliorate this new loam into the surface. This was basically spiking every 2 weeks from the beginning of October through to the end of December. We knew there was no way we would be able to get rid of all the thatch - that would take a few years using only scarification - so the aeration programme was even more important than normal. It was imperative that holes were put through any thatch that remained so that the new roots could get to some kind of depth.
The entire square was overseeded with
Barenbrug Bar Extreme. Unfortunately, it didn’t rain very much in September down here, so establishment was a bit
“This was basically spiking from early October to the end of December”
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