Summer Sports - Bowls
verti‐cut it heavily, has been the single biggest factor in this pitch’s improvement.
I do that all the way through the summer, maybe every fortnight or every week. Each time, I remove six barrow‐loads of grass, and you can’t see that you’ve done it. But, it makes the grass grow vertically, then when the woods roll on top of the blades, it gets faster. It’s a wonderful machine. I’ve worked with other companies before my current account manager at ALS, Chris Knowles, who has only just recently joined the company, and have put together a proper series of food nutrition for the green with his help.
That’s because this is a very poor surface, in terms of its make‐up. It is, believe it or not, constructed out of material from the Shrewsbury Bypass. And that goes all the way down. About thirty years ago, a firm came in to renovate the green, they removed the top surface and then walked out of the job, leaving the club to totally remake the green.
So, they took lorry loads of soil from the road, and tipped it over that [the western] wall. And they spread it, without even sieving it. There were stones and rocks in it, and still are.
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There are no drains. There is a cinder base to it, but that’s the original base. As you can imagine, some of the soil from the bypass is quite clay‐based, so we do have a problem with it being moist, hence we have an ongoing problem with fusarium. In that sense, I suppose it is a good thing that we’re on a hill. Some of it does disappear out from there … eventually. We have spent a huge amount of money on feeding it, and trying to improve the quality of that soil, insofar as it should hold more nutrients, and hold more microorganisms.
The green, we found, is very healthy in most respects, save for two key areas: it has a pH of 4.7, which is very low indeed; and it has a higher iron content than it should
We’ve stopped using iron sulphate, for example, on the recommendation of Chris, who had taken a sample from the green.
The green, we found, is very healthy in most respects, save for two key areas: it has a pH of 4.7, which is very low indeed; and it has a higher iron content than it should.
That is because they used to use granules of iron sulphate to control moss, which is of course residual, and it just builds and builds until the surface is no
74 I PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2018
longer balanced properly. Before talking to Chris, I was using soluble iron, which is the same stuff as the granules really, to control moss, toughen the grass and control disease. Now, I’ve moved onto chelated iron, to reduce the level of iron in the green. And aids like that are all part of the science of what we do, which I’m learning about, but would love to learn more about. I’ve tried, in fact, to get access to a Level 2 course to improve my knowledge of that science, but they don’t hold them around here. They only hold them in England.
That training organisation couldn’t help me with my green in person, and they very rarely, if ever, publish articles or information on looking after a bowling green.
That led me to leave my membership of the organisation which was providing my qualifications, and to ask for Chris’s help, because he covers a wider area.
I also wanted to gain my spraying certificates but, because I tend to need to pay for training and equipment myself, I couldn’t afford to.
Very luckily, a member of our small club just happened to already have the qualifications, so he can do the spraying for us whenever we’ve got the equipment at hand.
So, overall, this is a non‐stop job, for which I obviously don’t get paid. In fact, it’s probably cost me an average of £500 per year. I’ve cut it specially for your visit. You can see it’s double‐cut, on direction was yesterday with a Ransomes mower, which is perfectly suitable during the winter work, although it isn’t fine enough to carry on later. The Dennis is a much more versatile machine.
As everyone is, we are plagued with worms, as you can see. But, we don’t go down the road of oil‐ based products ‐ and ALS are strictly with me on that decision. We don’t use such harmful products in the surface, and will continue not to.
Worms are hermaphrodites, and produce eggs three or four times per year, so even if you’re successful with those products, they come straight back again anyway.
Right by the green there are nests of robins and pied wagtails, which don’t cause any harm to the surface at all. It’s a help, actually, when they come and
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