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By Laurence Gale MSc in Cricket on 15th Jun 2006 16:00
Well and truly Earthquaked
By Laurence Gale MSc
On a recent outing to take some much needed cricket pictures I came across a local authority maintained cricket ground that was cracking up in more ways than one.
Now into the fifth game of the season the square is looking more like Crewe railway station with the amount of lines showing. Some of the cracks are 3-4mm in places!
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The cracking has been accelerated by the recent dry weather conditions, plus the fact that watering facilities at the ground are limited.
The linear aeration lines were running down the length of each pitch, and the whole square had been treated. The cracking was even more pronounced on the more recently prepared wickets where the sward had be mown below 4mm.
There was also some horizontal cracking forming on the sides of the drain lines.
I would certainly question whether this type of aeration technique is suitable for decompacting cricket squares, knowing full well the likely consequences of the shrinking and swelling characteristics of clay soils.
Most groundsmen do aerate their squares, but generally use solid tine spikers like the vertidrain, Groundsman and SISIS machines, and complete the work before Christmas to allow the soil profile to recover and minimise the chance of any cracking in the forthcoming season.
In my opinion these cracks will not only affect the playing characteristics of the pitch but will also accelerate its deterioration and could be considered dangerous.
What are your thoughts?
Has any one else used the Earthquake to aerate their squares?
Read more articles in Cricket,
by Laurence Gale MSc
or from June 2006.
There are 26 comments on this article
15 Jun 2006 by Anthony Asquith
Bloody scary !
This is the a classic case of de-compacting using similar machines ( slitting etc) when it`s too dry (and too late)
Remember how dry it was around the UK back in jan,feb etc
We are all aware of aerating (esp slitting) on heavy colloidal clay structures too late and during dry conditions
15 Jun 2006 by Anthony Asquith
And...
Once soils are moist and plastic throughout ie dec,jan etc then the action of earthquaking may be ok however once soils dry then this process will be DETRIMENTAL
I maybe wrong and stand to be corrected !
15 Jun 2006 by leon
sack the man in charge he has no idear
Redbourn Cricket Club
15 Jun 2006 by olaf
it's one those things that seems like a good idea at the time Isuppose. makes me want to start bowling again
well at least till Irecall how bad I was at it anyway.
Some people are like Slinky's, totally useless but amusing if you push them down the stairs
16 Jun 2006 by Bewolf
Understand y not to slit loam cricket squares, but gives rise to question as to whether they can be hydro/air jetted?
16 Jun 2006 by Neil Dixon
The Groundsman must have been desperate to carry out this.
It always amazes me how bad a surface can look in the depths of winter, what with water logging, yellow grass, but come the summer all the "winter problems" are forgotten!!!
17 Jun 2006 by Anonymous
would have thought a little common sense would have been used. only an idiot would consider using an earthquake type machine on their square regardless of the time of year. linear aeration is all very effective and well but earthquaking??? hmmmmm....oh dear!!
19 Jun 2006 by taffy
I think we have a classic example of someone who has has had very little education of sportsturf. This is really quite shocking as the person who made the decision to carry out this operation on this cricket square is probably in charge of a number of other sports pitches. It makes you wonder what bad practices have been carried out on these areas.
21 Jun 2006 by Noah Little
I agree with all the comments made...
It is staggering to think that a "groundsman" (questionable description of the person!) would even consider using linear aeration to do this and also that the operation has been carried out at all. I hope that it wasn't a contractor that did the work as if it was, you would have to question his ethics in doing an operation that he must have know was less than ideal or suitable... the phrase "take the money and run" springs to mind.
Timing is critical for any aeration/decompaction operation, whether you are using verti-drain, deep drill, mini-tines or even Graden/Sisis deep scarifiers.
The damage is done now. I guess that his end of season renovation will probably involve using a 10 tonne road roller to try and flatten it all out and squeeze the cracks together !!!!!!!!! ECB advisory visits and IOG membership would be a good present don't you think?
23 Jun 2006 by grassbarber
The main thing is that people learn from this disaster, compaction relief on a block should be a last resort and have as little impact as possible.
23 Jun 2006 by Paul lowe
My concern is with the provider of the earthquake, I feel that they should never have let this happen, whoever supplied the machine should have the expertise and the technology to recognize what will happen. It’s unethical to let an inexperienced groundsman use an earthquake on his wicket.
Whoever it was should be ashamed of themselves!!
23 Jun 2006 by Neil Dixon
Hi Paul,
I dont neccesarily agree with your view about the provider of the earthquake being held responsible.
Surely it is the job of these companies top sell us ( Experts!) the machinery to carry out different maintenance tasks that the man in charge wants to do, , it is then down to the individual to carry them out.
Yes they can advise what may be a good or bad buy or what may or may not be suitable but that is as far as it goes .As the end of the day they are not going to turn down a sale if someone is insistent that they want an earthquake machine.
As i am sure you know, It is the managers job to identify machinery that can be used relevant to there own envirionment, through research and speaking to companies, if they cant or wont do this they shouldnt be in that position of authority.
For all we know the supplier of the earthquake machine to this groundsman may have said, "whatever you do, dont use it on the cricket square!!"
Would you blame a supplier of a verti drain for the groundsman or greenkeeper spiking in waterlogged conditions??
I believe the fault has to lay with the person who carried this out, whether they were contractors or a full time groundsman, they should have known the risks associated with this and any other type of operation.
23 Jun 2006 by Paul lowe
Hi Neil
It is obvious that this groundsman is not an expert. However if indeed he is a full time groundsman with an education and experience then yes you are right he should know better. Or if, as I suspect, he were an unpaid helper / volunteer at the local cricket club, then a bit of guidance would be appropriate from the supplier.
In my view an amateur or a committee member who thinks he is helping his club has requested this work, I may be wrong I just don’t want to believe that an expert has requested for this to be done!!
23 Jun 2006 by andy dixon
Hi Laurence, didn`t we study together under david rhodes/joe paulin? I think we have to remember the nature of loams and their particle sizes compared to the sand-based greens these machines were designed for as well as the need for a flat, even surface in cricket.We cannot just take methods from one sport and apply to another. i have had a similar experience where an ex golf greenkeeper decided that the best way of ameliorating top dressings into a bowling green was with a dragmat which, over a period of years resulted in uneven levels.Hopefully lots of deep watering and rolling will amend the situation over time.
23 Jun 2006 by Cranfield
Yes we did, what a fine day that was.
I believe the council owns its own Earthqauke machine, which is usually used for keeping the football pitches open and free draining, however, someone in their wisdom, thought it would benifit the cricket tables.
It will be interesting to find out how the wickets have played and what the players think? And has you say see what the consequencies of these actions will be in the coming months
23 Jun 2006 by leon
every groundsman thinks he has the right methord of inproveing their own playing service and should not be deamed a villan for trying some thing different. perhaps its time for lawrence gale to find out why this groundsman took this drastic action on a cricket square and not make members of this web site slag him or her off , or even explain why this operation should not had takern place in the first place so late on .
A CONCERNED MEMBER
Redbourn Cricket Club
23 Jun 2006 by slysi
Leon, that has to be the most ridiculous statement I've heard for some time. Whatever the problems on a square, no-one would advocate doing this aeration work so close to the season.
It would appear to be a massive knee jerk, and would have quite happily waited until the end of the season for this type of work.......if there are indeed problems.
23 Jun 2006 by Ben1
leon thats a little unneccesary. yes its true every groundsman has their own method but no one in their right mind would earthquake a cricket square.
whilst AA would provide you with a more 'in depth' explanation of clay characteristics and why not to carry out this operation on a square the primary reason is that for cricket wickets to be created the clay structure needs to be bonded both through soil adhesion and grass roots to a sufficient compressive strength. earthquaking damages both, the soil doesnt have enough time to rebond/compact and neither does the roots.
drying and subsequent cracking occurs along the lines of weaknesses within the soil.
IF drainage is the problem then more suitable operations would be verti draining or alternatively as i have overseen is at the edge of every two wickets (@20ft spacings) to install 4" wide drains at substructure depth. this was carried out under severely waterlogged circumstances and wouldnt advise any small scale clubs to get any ideas. it does have its problems. perimeter drains are also extremely effective.
eatchquaking should never be carried out on wickets regardless of the problem. each to his own.
24 Jun 2006 by ha.worth
we had our football pitch done not sure wether it upset the drains or not but we seem to have had problems since here in Bury we had plenty rain this past winter
25 Jun 2006 by andy dixon
personally i can`t see any kind of drainage at 20ft spacings helping at all unless it`s to the surface and the soil is at saturation point.the nature of clay soils is that they hold there moisture and do not allow free movement of water, or not across 20ft at least. Refer to Hooghoudt`s Drainage Equation for a more thorough explanation. It must also be considered that in the wrong conditions, aeration can produce compaction if the surface is not lifting or creating fissures.
30 Jun 2006 by cwmboy@clara.co.uk
I used the Earthquake through the batting ends of our cricket nets at the end of their use in August a couple of years ago. We then did our normal renovations in the Autumn. We had fantastic growth on the ends with really good root development that payed dividends the following summer with absolutely no sign of any linear cracking.
That said I wouldn't do the whole pitch with it because of the possible/probable consequences as demonstrated by this fellow! But I wouldn't hesitate to use it on the ends late summer again. It worked with us anyway.
Bryan
Wellington College
1 Jul 2006 by Anthony Asquith
Interstingly though....
When managing clay structures linear aeration could increase problems !
Machines with blades closer together (and depth usualy to 3-6mm) ie conventional scarifiers causes less problems than those that have larger spacings and penetrate deeper into the structure ie the Earthquake
This is another example of the above !
Ofcourse this new word "linear aeration" relates itself to graden`s etc which are excelent machines
1 Jul 2006 by Anthony Asquith
Oops
I misquoted
Ofcourse i`m not suggesting an earthquake is a scarifier !
But i was just saying problems COULD occur the way linear aeration is carried out
Doing any sort of intense cultivation after december or january could be totaly detrimental on clay soils used for summer sports
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