First signs of Winter- November update

November

Now that the day light hours have shortened and temperatures have dropped, growth has slowed considerably. At this theme of year, turning pitches around between training sessions and games takes a bit more work.

In the height of summer, the turf almost recovered itself. Somethimes it's a simple as putting a mower over to tidy up and a quick walk over to knock back any small indentations and scars created during the training session. With soil based pitches, we do get indentations from heel marks and boot footprints if it's a bit soft or a decent amount of rain has fallen during the session. If these depressions are not lifted out, like you would do to a pitch mark on a golf green, then they will thin in the centre and go yellowaround the edges. The weakened area is also more susceptible to disease.

Fortunately, most of the training ground is open with plenty of access to light. Air flow is good as there are mainly surrounded by open fields.
At the stadium it is a different story. This month we have really noticed the lack of sunlight on the stadium pitch with the grow lights reminding us of the reason we have them cluttering up the car park during the summer. Turf growth has slowed considerably across the pitch, except under the light. As we are cutting across the pitch and hit an area where the lights have been, the clippings start to fly into the box. The sward is stood up, dense and has a healthy vigour about it.

Stadium pitch in late afternoon gloom

We have applied a slow release fertiliser this month (sierrablen 15-0-18) that we are expecting to last 8-12 weeks and a conventional release (7-0-14) which we apply approximately every 4 weeks at this time of year, depending on weather conditions. We are also applying our biostimulant mix as a liquid sprayed half rate every fortnight. I have played with the mixtures of this over the last couple of years and have settled with something that is really working for us.
The academy pitches don't have the same spec feed due to costs and I've always struggled to find something for the late autumn/ early winter to apply. When we are into the winter proper, we will apply a 4-0-8, which is a relatively inexpensive product in comparison (to the 7-0-14) but never seems to be quite enough nitrogen at this time of year and the pitches look a bit hungry. It seems the last few years that we need to keep the pitches going with the feed up to around the new year until we really do turn into winter.
So, this year I am going to try the "proturf" 12-0-15 on the academy pitches which should release over a period of a couple of months. With the cost being double of the 4-0-8, but lasting twice as long, I figured that it will fit in the budget, providing it does last the 8 weeks... we shall see.

The worm deterant sprays continue with average results. I keep telling myself they could be worse if we didnt spray at all..
Our U23/18 match pitch (pitch 6) at the training centre is still looking good with very close to 100% grass coverage - minus worm casts. This year we were able to have infield irrigation installed, which was a big upgrade from travelling sprinklers to irrigate. This has enabled us to have the surface removed (koro'd) during the renovations, removing the thatch layer which has slowly built up over the years, and for us to be able to work 80 tonnes of sand into the surface to aid the movement of water through the root zone. This is the trial pitch for the Barenbrug RPR stadium seed mixture. Early signs are very promising, but I will reserve full judgment for later in the season.

With 4 1st games on the stadium pitch during December, we hope the weather is on our side and the lights still do their thing to see us through to the new year.