With the new grass growing season almost upon us, Pitchcare Ireland will be going through the processes involved with implementing your Spring Renovations. There are a series of steps involved in spring renovations and each step should be implemented in sequence and will complement the other. Over a couple of articles, the second of which can be found here, we will go through the nine important operations involved in close detail.
These are the steps involved and we recommend that they should be carried out in the following order:
1. Mowing
2. Moss treatment
3. Scarification, removal of unwanted debris
4. Aeration, de-compaction of soil
5. Top dressing, restores levels and improves drainage
6. Over-seeding, restores grass populations
7. Fertilising, provides nutrients for grass growth
8. Brushing to incorporate dressings and help grass stand
9. Irrigation, watering
Now, the success of any spring renovations you take on will be dependent on a lot of internal and external factors. Resources, budgets, the soil profile of your facility, constraints on time, staff and machinery will have a large effect on the success of your renovation.
To maximise the effect of spring renovation it is essential to evaluate the existing condition of the turf. You should have your soils tested regularly to determine the pH to ensure the acidity levels are correct. Soil testing will also give you a good handle or organic matter content, particle size distribution (PSD), bulk density and soil penetration resistance. It is always highly recommended to carry out a comprehensive soil analysis. The results of soil testing can be used to help provide you with a tailored nutrient programme, specific to your facilities requirements.
You should also take a vigorous visual assessment of your playing surfaces. Keep stock of how much weeds are in the swards, assess the levels of grass cover, make note of any bare patches. All these assessments will determine to what extent, you will need to carry out your spring renovations.
1. Mowing
The grass is usually mowed prior to starting any renovation works. Try and get a good dry afternoon to get good quality cut, mowing after a heavy rainfall or with a heavy morning dew on the surface can result in damaging the playing surface.
For fine turf, golf and bowling greens the cut may be down to 5-7mm, for tennis and cricket outfields 8-12mm, for football and Hurling 25-30mm, and for Gaelic football and rugby 30-40mm. The objective of mowing the playing surface is to clean and prepare the surface, so make sure your mower is able to collect all the cuttings.
2. Moss Treatment
Moss can be a big problem within turf. It can flourish in the absence of air where soil is very compacted or doesn't drain freely and also in shaded areas or areas where the nutrient status of the soil may have been depleted. A typical renovation involves applying a moss control product like Jewel, which is an herbicide that will also control certain broad-leaved weeds, or a sulphate of iron based product often as a soluble powder, within a fertiliser or as a liquid. Ensure that the moss is damp, not wet through, but able to absorb the fluid being applied.
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For moss control, ensure water volumes are high enough to ensure good coverage and enable the fluid to move over the leaf surface by capillary action. It is advisable to rinse out the sprayer thoroughly as soon as spraying is complete, as the iron will degrade any metal surfaces it comes into contact with. Iron does not mix well with many products, and it is advisable to 'jug mix' any products before attempting to apply them. Once the moss dies and turns yellow/brown with herbicide or black and breaking up if treated with iron, it is ready for the next step, scarifying.
3. Scarifying
What is scarifying? Well, to keep a quality lawn, a gardener would get out every spring to give the grass a decent scarifying to remove the dead grass and improve the quality and appearance of the lawn. The same is true for groundsmen and greenkeepers, scarifying is the term used to remove this unwanted vegetation. During growth the grass plant produces a lot of dead material, both above and below ground level.
Thatch layer (above ground): A layer of dead and decomposing plant material consisting of leaf, crown, rhizomes and roots, which can be several centimetres thick. When thatch is excessive, the playing surface can becoming soft, wet and slow and vulnerable to disease.
Mat layer (below ground): A layer of newly accumulated vegetative matter, which builds up within the surface (0-5 mm). Some of this new matter dies back leaving a dead mass of root material which can often prevent and restrict new root growth and affect gaseous exchange in the soil. Where present in excess amounts this contributes to disease occurrence and a squelchy, muddy surface after rain. It is very important to have this debris removed.
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When choosing the tools or machines you should use to scarify your turf, you should take the following things into consideration;
- size of the area
- type of playing surface (fine golf green or football pitch)
- depth of the mat
- surface damage
- time constraints
- soil type
- grass type
A gardener would use a rake or a cassette in his mower to remove the dead foliage. This type of scarifying would not damage the soil surface, and would not matter if it did. For bigger renovation jobs, there is the following machinery;
Scarifiers / verticutters: Pedestrian or mounted on smaller powered units, these devices are designed to lift organic litter from the mat layer that builds up in the surface.
Heavy duty scarifiers: Mounted on bigger pedestrian or tractor units, these devices are designed to lift organic litter from within the thatch layer to depth of 25-30mm.
Hollow / solid corers: Pedestrian or tractor mounted units, these are designed to remove or punch holes through the thatch and soil to depths of 6-65mm.
Whatever method you choose to clean out the surface and get rid of the build-up of dead matter that has built up over the winter, have a good think about what you want to achieve. Trying to remove too much debris is likely to scar and damage the playing surface, resulting in surface disfigurement that may affect ball role and play.
4. Aeration
Compaction reduces the amounts of available oxygen that is held within the pore structure that is so vital for root growth, water movement and general plant health. Any decrease in the size and number of soil pores will lead to many detrimental effects on the grass surface above. Drainage rates will be reduced and the rate at which water enters the soil will also decrease, meaning a wet, soggy, un-usable surface for long periods after rain or through the winter period.
Heavy compaction actually prevents the grass plant rooting as the pore spaces in the soil are too small to allow any roots to penetrate and leads to many other problems including:
- Increased amounts lateral surface rooting leading to increased amounts of thatch
- Poor summer colour is exhibited by the grass leaves
- Poor drought resistance of the plant
- Poor wear tolerance of the plant
- Ineffective use of water and fertilisers
- Can lead to an increase in moss
Aeration is an important part of the renovation programme. Not only does aeration remedy any compaction problems by restoring and improving air movement in the soil profile, it also provides channels and openings for the top dressing materials to integrate, particularly if hollow coring or hollow tines have been used. The benefits of aeration are:
- Improves soil surface drainage (water infiltration).
- Helps to increase soil temperatures.
- Increases soil pore space.
- Allows gaseous exchanges in the soil (oxygen, carbon dioxide) that improves root growth and development.
- Aids integration of top dressings into soil profile.
- Aids the breakdown of thatch and dead organic matter.
- An aid to promoting better surface levels that will increase ball roll and speed.
- Aids surface firmness and dryness, increasing ball bounce and surface grip.
Your aeration processes should not be carried out when the soil is in a wet, saturated condition. Aeration of wet soil leads to smearing when the tines are pushed in and pulled out. The grasses on any sports turf surface require lots of water and smearing will seal the soil preventing any air or water movement. Essentially this will cancel out all the benefits aeration brings.
Traditionally, all aeration practices have been implemented through the use of hand tools or machinery that inserts tines into the ground and heaves. In more recent times we have seen vast arrays of equipment that use different sized and shaped tines aimed at providing a multitude of different effects.
The use of compressed air being injected into the ground is now becoming increasingly popular, see the popular and expensive Air2G2. This successful treatment method is proven in the agricultural world and is commonly being used to improve tree growth conditions for the tree roots.
Aeration Tools & Machinery;
Surface: Lawn or Garden
Tools: Hand Aerator (Hollow or Solid tines), Forks, Sarrel Rollers
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Surface: Bowling, Cricket and Golf Greens.
Tools / Machines: Coring machine, Sarrel Rollers, Solid Tine Compact Verti-drain Verticore machine
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Surface: Gaelic, Soccer, Rugby, Golf fairways and Horse racing
Tools / Machines: Vertidrain Linear Aerator, Air2G2
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In part two of this article, here is the link, we will go through the final five operations involved in performing a spring renovation, Top Dressing, Over-Seeding, Fertilising, Brushing and Irrigation.
