EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENTS
I am slightly restructuring how we achieve these
results, by getting away from the all hands to the pump approach
Emma Kilby of ICL, Tom Weaver at Agrovista Amenity and Geoff Little at Core Amenity.” The soil profi le across all sites is a sandy loam, which Ed describes as ‘great in the winter as it is very free draining’. “The downside is during summer when we dry out very quickly. The common problem with this is that you leach nutrients; we have used slow release fertilisers, which seem to have kept things ticking over, and held on to colour really well. We annually send off soil samples for testing and, on top of this, we have our own sampler to regularly check the profi le. So far, there haven’t been any major issues highlighted through these, so I am not dictated by this.”
“However, compaction is a big problem on all of our sites, especially at Abington. This is an area of concern, particularly at the beginning of the rugby season, which we are looking to rectify in the short-term with more aeration, to really loosen the profi le. We have introduced a new fertiliser programme using slow release products so, along with the aeration, I believe we can improve the root depth. I strongly believe that going back to basics will make a big diff erence.”
“The Upper also suff ers from quite a bit of thatch in a few areas, so scarifying is an area we need to address on the outfi elds, and we are looking into additional equipment to carry out this procedure. Verti-cutting is currently undertaken out on our main cricket squares and it’s also a big part of our pitch preparations.” As well as the new fertiliser programme, Ed has made small changes to his seed selection and introduced growth regulators, which he believes will also make a big diff erence. “Last year, we used Masterline PM81 on all the outfi elds which have irrigation and I’m waiting to use Masterline PM80 on all the other areas, but this has been delayed due to current circumstances. The reason for the PM80 on non-irrigated areas is due to the claim of better drought tolerance. My knowledge is that it contains 20% 4Turf tetraploid perennial rye grass, which means it has four sets of chromosomes (which in turn means it has twice the chloroplast in each cell). This allows the plant to produce more chlorophyll, which creates a healthier plant that is more tolerant of stress.”
Sometimes, people’s general opinion of the industry is not a good one and I don’t feel that it is classed as a skilled trade
70 PC February/March 2021
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