Technical - Soil Biology
Symbio’s Managing Director Martin Ward says that there is an alternative to hollow coring and deep scarification; one that will significantly reduce machinery and labour costs, when adopted
Hollow Coring and Deep Scarification
Is it really necessary?
I
f sports turf managers were to start from scratch today, to design a way of maintaining low thatch, decompacted, fast draining rootzones, then the key design parameters would be - minimal disruption,
minimal cost for manpower, machinery and consumables, minimal use of finite resources, whilst converting the thatch to plant food, humus and organic acids to increase CEC, retain fertilisers and support the natural processes that create free draining, friable rootzones.
Compaction leading to poor infiltration rates, a build-up of thatch and anaerobic conditions are inbuilt design flaws of most heavily used sand based golf greens and sports pitches. Most current thinking suggests that a physical solution is the only answer; consequently, a lot of the turf manager’s time and budget is taken up by the physical removal of thatch and hollow coring and topdressing to dilute thatch, improve drainage and relieve compaction.
Physical maintenance, in the form of deep scarification, hollow coring and heavy topdressing with up to 200 tonnes of sand per year, is time consuming, expensive, disruptive, uses finite resources, temporarily reduces the enjoyment of the game and results in lost play and lost income for the club.
Less obvious and longer term implications of heavy topdressing to dilute thatch is the storing up of problems for later years, when the organic material may become buried below the reach of most solid tines, so oxygen is not available to convert it aerobically to beneficial organic matter, it also dilutes the plant nutrients N, P, K, Ca, S, Mg, Cu, B, Zn, Mn, and
116 I PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016
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