“By March roots were down to five inches holding the profile together”
Ken Wheaton with the Allen V Star
slow. Having said that we had a fairly even coverage within 3 weeks and I was cutting the new grass by the first week in October. As we knew that the surface would either be replaced or Koro’d at some point, we decided that we didn’t really want to spend the earth on top quality loam. Through Pitchcare I have made many good friends, one of whom is David Goodjohn at GSB loams. I had an indepth chat with David, going through our aims and what standard I needed to get the tracks to. He suggested that we gave the GSB Club loam a try. Motty tests showed it to be a good match, so we went with his suggestion. I have to say I’ve been very happy, so far, with the way it has performed.
... and the pace was good!
winter - requiring two or three cuts per month. The only time when the square wasn’t cut was the last couple of weeks of
January and the first two
The grass continued growing almost all
weeks of February, and that was only because it was so wet. We took cores out throughout the winter period to see how things were developing. By March roots were down to around four to five inches and, although the thatch layer was clearly visible on some tracks, it was nowhere near as bad as previously and the roots passed through it, holding the profile together across the potential break. Preseason rolling started in March - basically as soon as the conditions were correct. I started with some quick passes
with the square cutter - an Allett 30R (the wicket mower was away for maintenance) slowing it down as much I could. I completed a union jack pattern with the Allett and, as conditions seemed just about perfect, we went on with the main roller (unballasted). We started off with a union jack pattern at reasonable speed and then another pattern at slower speed. Things were starting to look and feel quite nice. We ballasted up the roller for a final pattern at slow speed. I was very fortunate in that the captains of our 3rd and 4th teams helped out with the rolling. We kept a log on a white board in the garage so that everyone knew what the last direction rolled was and also how much time had been spent on rolling. When we finished I’d done some ten hours with the Allett and fourteen with the main roller, all done in optimum conditions.
So what did the cores look like? At the beginning of April we had roots down to around five inches. Perhaps not the density of root I would have liked but at least they were there. We also had visible
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