renovation and I’ve a project in hand to replace the land driven gangs which I think simply don’t produce the finish required at Premier standard. All the machinery (with the exception of the spiker) is in pretty good nick. Am I the only one who thinks
Autoroller is a strange choice of name. Auto for me brings to mind ‘automatic’. There’s nothing automatic about it. I still have to sit on the darn thing for hours - all the while thanking the powers that be for inventing mp3 players.
As it’s now come to the time of year (January) when there isn’t a great deal that can be done on the grounds it’s time to start planning everything out for the forthcoming season and making sure that all the necessary paper work etc. is up to date. Why wait until mid summer (when you’re rushed off your feet) to plan your end of season renovations? After all, you already have a good idea of what you’re going to want to do ? Why not plan them out and start getting prices together now? Everyone hates carrying out risk assessments but surely now is the time make sure you’ve got them in place. Leave them until summer and they’ll never get done.
What did I spend January and February doing? I mean apart from cursing the fact that the grass is still growing and everywhere is too wet for me to cut it. Paper work: Risk assessments, pre-season rolling plans, maintenance plans for training areas, renovation plans, track usage plans, and something new - presentations for captains and committee members on the basics of ground maintenance. I’ll have to report back on whether this is a success or not but my thoughts are that it certainly can’t hurt if committees get to appreciate a bit more about where I spend their money and captains get to appreciate what goes into producing tracks for them. Pre-season rolling - why do I plan? I like to go on holiday (normally) prior to the season starting. This means that everything has to be planned out, people need to know what has to be done, when and in what conditions, and with which machine.
As with every year how much pre-season rolling needs to be done is very dependent on what effects you see in the surface while carrying it out. The theory
goes that you start with the lightest roller and work up to your main roller. I don't know about everyone else but, at present, I don’t actually know which is my lightest roller. The Honda rotary is the lightest machine, but it also has the smallest diameter roller, so does this mean that it is the lightest roller in terms of downward pressure on a given area? Alex Vickers did a good article on this very subject -
http://www.pitchcare.com/magazine/articl e/1585. If you’ve not read it then I suggest you do.
When it comes to the actual pre-season
rolling how are you going to know what effect, if any, you’re having on the
surface? You need to take core samples and, if you haven’t the necessary experience, then you’ll also need to calculate the bulk densities. As you carry out your rolling you should see the bulk density increase. If you don’t, then it isn’t having any effect and you need to find out why.
One thing I’m hoping to try this year is using a very heavy (around 4 tonne) roller to try and get more density in the lower profile. This idea came from a seminar at Bath Cricket Club where Megan Hood of the STRI talked about practices that were common in New Zealand (which has a similar climate to the UK - so, if it all goes wrong I’ll blame
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Total Turf Solutions One trusted resource for your sports surfaces 71
Manchester College of Art & Technology
cross-section of total-play net system
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