Message Board - Cricket: Fertilizing

What are you guys using on the squares this time of year?.
Will you be using a Fert with a percentage of Iron involved to strength the sward and help kill off the Moss?.
My square has a minimal red thread currently but i would like a fert to tackle both. What do you guys recommend?. I Used to use Sheriff 5,5,10 Evolution. but need to fert soon with Rain leaching nutrients away. Rob

Once temps are up and the floods clear after the snow, I would normally use a 5-5-10 + fe granular or, if using liquid, 5-4-20 with some iron added to it.

Rob
Dont know where you are mate. I nearly got carried away yesterday cos it didnt rain for 4 hours and the temp got above 6c and was going to put some fert on but pulled back from the brink. Sure enough, it hissed down again in the afternoon.Just as well I went home!

I think we will need to wait untill we have a few days dry weather then again it may be frozen. It will be a late spring and i'm in the garden of england so i feel for everyone in scotland. Ian

Gonna hiss down all weekend by the look of it down here and most of the country.
I think end of March/ beginning of April is going to be very , very busy!

Hi Barry

I'm in South East. I have three squares to look after, one is under water whilst the other two i can get on.
I would like to use the 5-5-10+fe again but need to raid my boss. It's hammered down all week and feel i should fertilize with temperatures rising and the wet weather.
Where about's are you?.

cheers for comments thus far lads.

Rob

Hey Rob,

I shall be using 4-0-10+4%fe soon, put some 4-0-10+10%fe on bowling green yesterday, got a good watering in.

Heard you were supposed to be at Headingley this week, what went wrong?

Vic.

I managed to get a small feed on about 3 weeks back. Other than that there's no way I can do anything on my squares at the moment. The grass is alive but that's about it - whilst it doesn't look too healthy, I know it will recover fine when the warmer weather comes and I can get on it to work it.
It's still only February guys, this time last year I was pretty much still under snow.

Hi Vic

Mate with Varsity games on and the Pro football club we tender too we were to busy to make it up there.
Was a shame as sounded like a good day meeting some exceptional groundsman in our industry, plus the added bonus of plenty of beers.
Managed to fertilize a square this morning, the other two are saturated so stayed off.
Have some 4-12-12 so applied that.

With the heavy rain we have been getting i would say putting fertiliser on at the moment is a waste of money. My squares are all at satiration point. Ian

Mine is in desperate need of a feed but as you can see from this picture taken today, theres no way I can do anything and it's actually a lot wetter than it looks, I had a walk round with the mad mut and the whole field has got about half an inch of standing water on it, much like many other threads on here at the moment there are times when you just have to leave well alone. I had a look in the diary earlier and I started PSR on 3rd of March last year, think it might be a bit later this year somehow.

Villager
Im in north Surrey. Down there this morning, saturated. Any fert would just get washed away, got to be patient.
PSR aint gonna happen till later in March this year. Anyway, got nothing to cut it with, square mower in bits for servicing.

Hi barry

Just read your piece in the Feburary magazine, love the picture. I too love playing cricket and have toured barbados 3 times playing there.
Managed to fertilize two square's yesterday!. I'm getting bored with this weather had to get out there.
Where did you play your club cricket?, birmingham league?

I must be lucky. Have had to nice days cut and fertilised square cut round net area and generally got plenty done.

Villager
Yeah bit of fun the 20 questions stuff.
No mate, Ive played all my cricket in Surrey in the Surrey Championship.What made you say Birmingham league?
I played on a tour to Jamaica back in the eighties when Windies cricket was still very strong, different now.
Looks lke we ve got 3 nice days down here coming up but overnight its going to be minus and quite heavy frosts so no point doing anything yet. Might try and repair some bare outfield areas today and clean up my pedestrian spreader so it actually works!

Where are you Eddie? Rained for 10 hours down here on Sunday, theyve put the Thames barrier up!!

Just that you work at Moseley and thought you may be around those parts.
I was in Barbados two seasons ago and the standard was decent, they roped in players all round the island and without sightscreens and a couple of WI A players made me hop around a bit.
Had a frost this morning, hoping if weather improves can cut main square lata on in wk before a feed.
Got a problem with a set of gang mowers currently inner wheel bearing shattered!.

Villager
Oh I see, no its East Molesey in Surrey!
I was in Barbados in January for my 60th and there was a ground behind the hotel, much to wifes delight. Watched some there and it varied in standard. But they still seem keen on their cricket there but overall the islands, the game is struggling think compared to 25 years ago. The kids are into football and basketball. Problem is, the Windies cricket authorities dont exactly cover themselves in glory either.

Beautiful day down here today 13 degrees in the sun. Square still too wet. But I gave it a good sweep and then repaired some outfield that has been knackered by the weather and dead leaves. Got about 40 big trees around the ground, they look lovely in the summer but are a booger in the winter. Liketrying to paint the Forth bridge with a toothbrush trying to clear them up!
Ive acually taken a chance today and seeded an area on the outfield, covered it with germinaton sheets and keep my fingers crossed that the frost doesnt get it.
Meant to have a couple of sunny days now, we ll see.
Good timiing with the gangers eh!

Hi Lads,
Talking of the west indies , here's a photo of the groundsman at Windsor park on the island of Dominica . What I haven't got a photo of though , is that he had 2 bikini clad women emptying his grass boxes at the end of each run .(wife stood next to me , so I thought I'd best not take a photo)

And what makes you think thats any different from this country, common enough site around Yorkshire that, ooohhh yyyeesss

Hi Barry im from Stourport just north of Worcester in the Midlands.

Eddie - I thought it was colder up there than down here!
Steve - That groundsman must be sometin else man!

Sunlover - look at Marios earlier post in this thread, hes the experienced man up your way to listen to. He uses a rule of thumb about min ground temps etc before he applies fert.
Also, its probably too cold and damp to cut the square anyway before you could apply fert, well mine is anyway.
I think everyone has problems with outfield moss mate. Personally. I am having it sprayed with iron sulphate but later in March when it hopefully warms up a bit. It wont get rid of it but hopefully will stop it getting any worse and act like a fert as well to a degree. Ive noticed like many last summer and this winter a lot more moss due to the weather. Not a lot you can do unless you have a huge budget I think. I enquired about Scotts "jewel" which is a combined moss and weed product. Trouble is, apparently, this makes the moss go black and then you have to scarify, rake and reseed the affected areas. Well, I havent got the money or equipment to do that over the whole outfield.

Barry. Yes cold first thing but no rain like it was predicted and Sunday Monday and tuesday the same.

SUNLOVER - My square is looking a bit sorry for itself having had to survive being under snow since the 17th of December with only about two weeks in that time when it melted for a few days. On these days it was saturated, so much so, that I would have needed to don wellies to even walk across the outfield.

Am I concerned? Not really. Why? 18 years experience seeing similar conditions at the end of Winter. (If Winter is really over of course!).

In essence - "Don't panic, Captain Mainwaring....don't panic!"

Like you, Sunlover, I look out this morning to glorious sunshine but I've had an overnight frost. If I were to apply granular fertiliser, it would need watering in. I don't have a forecast for rain so I would have to irrigate manually.
The water would freeze on the grass plant and cause even more stress.

Sit tight and wait until the soil temperature at 100mm depth is 5 degrees Centigrade or more. It is my understanding that the ability of the grass plant to take up nutrients is restricted below this figure.
Typically, I don't get any "real" square work done until after the clocks change.

The guys and gals on here will shortly be talking about how much pre-season rolling they are/ have been doing.

Remember our season starts almost a month after the clubs in that mythical land where they sing about "Three lions up their skirt" or summat like that!

What am I doing today? Putting some sponsors boards up. Giving my roller an oil and filter change and grease up. Lunch. Then some repair work to a damaged sightscreen. Nowhere near the square!!!! The season will soon be upon us, then you'll be fretting about how much time YOU DON'T HAVE!! Ha ha ha!

LOL too right Mario - won't be long before we're moaning that there ain't enough hours in the day.
With temperatures dropping again tonight I'll be leaving the square well alone today - got plenty to do anyway stripping out cylinders ready for sharpening.

I deliberately sent my 24inch wicket mower away this week for servicing so I wasnt tempted to tramp all over the still wet(and frost covered in the mornings) square.
Mind you, the 10 day forecast down here is dry but cold.
Was 12 c down here yesterday pm.

Mario - you got sponsors then!Not easy getting them to part with money currently and we re supposedly in a very afluent area.Got some but not as many as couple of years ago.

What helps up here is that we are "The Oil Capital", Barry!!

I thought it was our oil!

I got my cylinders stripped out and will drop them around for sharpening tomorrow - also managed a cut on the second outfield.
The main square is starting to dry up and I'm hopeful that if it warms a tad I'll be able to actually think about getting on it next week - it would be nice to get on there as I've a load of nosey groundsmen here on the 13th.

I was tempted to have a go at the outfield today but pulled back from the brink. The wormcasts still very much in evidence and would makea mess of my nice newly
sharpened cylinders on the triple!

Barry,
Chain harrow your outfield, flat side down, before cutting. It'll spread those wormcasts nicely. The harrows will also knock out many bigger lumps and so lead to a better first cut all round.

Even after harrowing Barry, the worm casts will still be back the next, when are you going to cut that grass without muddying your mower ?

You're right of course Bath - with our worm levels I use the harrows probably 10 times a year. With the dry top we now have they do a super break-up job so long as you cut within the next 24 hours or so. I'll be harrowing and cutting thisweekend I'm sure.

Bath/Jon
I do harrow it first. I attach the harrow onto my triple as I have no tractor but its been too wet to do it yet. The worm casts are drying a bit. Might give it a go tomorrow with the harrow.

Sunlover, i would say no. Leave it in the packets untill you have a sprayer or get someone in to do it.

sunlover, I'd be careful about applying iron to the outfield. Most outfields have quite a bit of moss in them - especially at this time of year coming out of the winter. If you apply Fe and start killing the moss then you're going to have to remove the dead stuff or the outfield will look horrid. An outfield is a heck of a big area to be raking by hand - and few clubs have access to equipment for scarifying outfields. I suppose Fe + chain harrow pikes down might be an option but it wouldn't be ideal.