July Football Diary 2008

This month is likely to turn a little drier as experienced towards the later part of last month. Most everyone experienced some frantic grass cutting during early June with moist soils and warmer weather finally kicking in. But thankfully for most, growth has slowed a little now.

Renovations

Hopefully by now your pitch renovations will be starting to become established and with the ongoing maintenance you will be ensuring a healthy, strong grass cover to lead you into the first match of your season. Include in your maintenance regular checks to those areas of your pitch that suffer from early stress to ensure that the grass is not suffering from a thin establishment. If this is the case, then it would be wise to pay some urgent attention to correcting the situation with a further over-sowing of a good hardy seed mix. Make sure you get good seed to soil contact for better germination rates and do not allow seedlings to dry out as they will not recover.

Turf treatments: Some turf treatments work well, and there are a number of them to choose from, such as organic based micronutrients, seaweed treatments, clay flocculants, amino acids and plant growth regulators such as Primo Maxx. It can sometimes be difficult to assess the benefits of such treatments but most managers will notice if it has been effective or not. If you are unsure then ask your supplier for a trial amount and test it for yourself. I'm sure they would be pleased to accommodate you.

Early This Month

As we enter into this month we leave June with some periods of dry weather. If you have had to over sow any thin areas, it is critical that you do not allow seedlings to dry out. Keep your seeded areas watered and, if possible and you have them to hand; make use of your germination sheets to encourage the rapid establishment of your seeded areas. If using germination sheets, check underneath them regularly for disease.

Make sure your goal posts are painted and ready for deployment. Also ensure your nets are checked for repairs or replacements are on hand if you haven't already done so.

Make sure you have enough line marking material to hand and enough to get you through your season. This is probably a good time to inspect your marker and ensure that it is in good working order for when you need it.

Later This Month

Continue to monitor the progress/success of your thin over sown areas to ensure that you have the best opportunity for the grass to be strong with good coverage for the start of the next season. An application of fertiliser can be applied late in the month to take the grass through the rest of July and into August.

The analysis applied should be in line with your program that will take into account the type of soil you have and the prevailing weather conditions and/or if you are able to irrigate. You may also consider an application of a turf tonic to compliment the fertiliser program to help your grass in situations where it is showing signs of stress.

Ongoing maintenance

If you are unable to provide irrigation to the whole pitch then at least you should try and ensure adequate watering of the goal mouth and centre circle areas. If you follow a program of using wetting agents to ensure a uniform wetting this will help. Such a program will need to have been initialized from April onwards and will usually follow a monthly application. This is particularly useful on soils prone to dry patch.

Drag matting and brushing: Continue the work of brushing to keep the air circulating around the base of the plant, particularly important for removing early morning dew and controlling disease. Following a pitch renovation, suspend this operation for a period to allow for the germination of the new seedlings to take place, particularly on over sown thin areas.

Cutting: Continue cutting regularly 25 -37mm to ensure a good sward density. It may be sometimes be helpful with newly sown grasses to lightly roll the surface before cutting to ensure that the weakly held grasses in the surface do not get pulled out. Also ensure that any cutting equipment used is keenly set to cut without tearing.

Spiking: Continue spiking when the conditions are right (This should only be carried out if the soil is suitably moist.) to augment your deep spiking carried out to alleviate built up compaction. Keep your spiking regime flexible, alternating between surface spiking, deep spiking and slitting.

By Malcolm Gardner
Grounds Manager
BA Clubs