Bowls Pitchcare Classifieds
The myth - cut it short, roll it flat
It is true to say that one of the commonest problems on bowling greens is a slow and heavy surface. Unfortunately, many bowlers still believe that the solution to this is a straightforward one and can be rectified by simply mowing very close and by the repeated use of a heavy roller
Whilst a shaving and rolling programme will sometimes produce an immediate improvement in the pace of a bowling green, the longer term side effects of these operations can be, and often are, next to disastrous.
Excessively close cutting only serves to weaken even the finer turf grasses and, ultimately, leads to the appearance of moss, bare thin swards and weak grass growth, resulting in stressed sward with low wear tolerance, which lacks colour, vigour and appearance. The players and members want immediate rectification and the greenkeeper needs to act quickly. So, he feeds with inorganic fertilisers to change the appearance, i.e. a quick fix mentality.
Heavy rolling compacts the soil and leads to drainage difficulties. In wet and compacted soils, the grass sward has real difficulty in producing adequate root growth. This can make the sward prone to drought in the summer and generally makes growth weaker than it should be. More feeds are added to improve the aesthetic value of the green. Compact soil conditions also encourage undesirable weeds and weed grasses, particularly our common enemy Poa annua (Annual Meadow Grass).
In order to determine the exact pace of a particular bowling green, it is only necessary to roll woods across its surface roughly from ditch to ditch, with the aim of getting the bowl to stop before it falls in the ditch. If this is repeated several times in different directions, and each wood timed with a stop watch, then an average can be obtained.
If each wood takes roughly eighteen seconds to cross the green, then the surface can be classified as fast. For greens of average pace, the woods will take fourteen seconds. If a figure below fourteen seconds is recorded, then woods are having to be bowled too hard and too fast, and the classification is excessively slow.
In order to effectively deal with a slow green it is essential to appreciate exactly what is causing the slowness of the surface and not simply turn to the myth that if you cut short and roll, it will sort it out.
The most common cause of excessively slow bowling greens is the presence of thatch. Examining the soil profile will often show some 50 to 75mm of fibrous material. If this is a feature of the green then, in order to speed up the playing surface, it is fairly obvious that major concentrated mechanical operations must be employed to eliminate the thatch.
The fact is that there are several types of thatch. Sometimes, one encounters a layer of material which is brown in colour and often looks like coconut matting. This is often produced by excessive acidity and a soil test can show exactly
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what the pH figure stands at. Excessive acidity levels reduce bacterial action in the soil and the natural breakdown of the fibre is, therefore, slower than it should be. If you try to change the pH, other undesirable side effects will be observed, such as worms, weeds, course grasses and disease.
More commonly, the thatch layer has a spongy yellow appearance and, in wet weather, can smell sour and unpleasant. Thatch of this kind is usually caused by poor drainage, of which compaction is likely to be the underlying problem.
Older greens may well have been built using Cumberland sea washed turf which, due to years of fertiliser and topdressing applications, commonly sits some millimetres below the surface. This is the original turf level which has become buried over the passage of time. The infected water holds within the thatch, likewise the artificial salt based fertilisers are held in the fibre, hence further thatch accumulation is promoted.
As in the case of acid, fibrous thatch bacterial action is lacking due to the waterlogging soil conditions, and dead and matted plant material gradually builds up.
Today’s greens are made up largely of annual meadow grass (Poa annua). This plant readily grows better than more desirable turf grasses in the shallow situation. The problem is worsened by the fact that annual meadow grass is particularly prone to thatch production, hence the problem snowballs. Over watering and over fertilising will drive the grasses into unwanted and unnecessary leaf production, so you cut more often and, furthermore, slow the run of the woods. As the sward subscribes to more annual meadow grass, more thatch is produced.
In the above example, the physical removal of thatch is the only effective way of producing a firmer and faster bowling surface.
If the thatch is yellow in appearance, then aeration and carefully selected topdressing are probably the most important operations.
A thatchy green of this kind should be well spiked during the off season. Once the machinery has been provided, in season aeration must also be encouraged from surface pricking to micro solid tining, providing it does not cause excessive
interference with play. Aeration using the flat knife type of tine should be regarded as standard, but it is often also useful to carry out hollow tine aeration work at the end of the season, ideally no later than early October.
Once the cores have been removed, and the surface cleaned, an application of a carefully selected topdressing can be given to the green. In very severe cases, some four tonnes, with a high sand content, is regularly prescribed to help aerate the soil whilst assisting in the firming up of the thatch.
Carbon is often applied as a food source to assist in the natural breakdown of thatch by way of soil macro and micro organisms. They are the factory by which all soils become productive once more.
When faced with an excessively slow bowling green, one should always investigate the cause of the slowness.
This article is from the Pitchcare archive.
Our basic LANTRA accredited Bowls Green Maintenance Course is now available in an online format. For more information visit
www.groundstraining.com
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