Where is Spring?

March 2018

Where is Spring?

 If it isn't official, I'm making official. That was the longest Winter.. And we haven't even seen the Spring weather yet. We are at least 5 deg C below what we were seeing last year at this time, and 25% more rain since new year- but we all battle on!

Snow arrived again at the beginning of March forcing the covering of the pitch for 8 days. Whilst it isn't good for the turf to be covered for any length of time, you're sometimes forced into doing things you don't want to do. It is more important that the fixture is fulfilled, after all, that is why a lot of money is spent making sure games aren't lost to the weather.

One of the most important parts of using the cover for us, is not letting rain fall on the pitch at the wrong time. Preventing the rain getting in the day before a game is vital, if it falls on a match day, there is little you can do but be prepared by aerating the day before a game. Wetting agents have been used in the past to help move water through, but if you hit a dry spell, we have found the surface dries out too quickly and kicks out of the top 25mm.

Unfortunately, there has been very little time in between games this side of Christmas, but we have just managed to get our first two week gap in games, allowing us to do some much needed remedial work. We have disc and dimple seeded the whole surface, verti drained to a depth of 12" and fleeced for 6 days raising the soil temperature from 7.5 to 12.8 creating enough of a rise to get the seed to germinate.
The risk of oversowing mid season is losing a percentage of new seedlings to play. There is never a big enough time gap to get much more that germination and seeing it out of the ground. nevertheless, if we have a 50% success rate, that's 50% more than if nothing was done.
As time goes on, with temperatures surely on the rise, the existing sword will thicken and stand up more and some growth and natural recovery between games will happen and the tough times will soon be a distant memory.

It is clear to see with the two photo's below of the benefit we see of having a grow light on the pitch. Historically, the picture on the right (south end) would be our weakest part of the pitch during the winter. It is no coincidence that it is now our strongest area. (the photo's were taken 30 seconds apart in February 2018)

The training ground has faired pretty well this Winter. Despite all the pitches being of natural soils and drainage in only one first team pitch, we have lost very few games to rain. No 1st team training has been lost to waterlogging, with only a couple of time due to freezing through the frost sheets.

We usually manage down to about -4 deg C but if we have a run of low temperatures, in the end, the cold gets through. We have found it best to then take the covers off as it tends to hold the cold in, once it is in.

Pitch 1, 1st team training area. March 2018

 A big part of the success is aeration, I have mentioned before how important keeping up to date with the aeration programme is. We aim to aerate with a Wiedenmann GXi8 with 12mm tines once a month and with a Verti-Drain with 19mm tines deep also once a month with a two week interval between them. This scenario is working well for us.

I know some clubs are now starting renovations at the training ground, and we shall too, in about two weeks time. Materials are ordered, some have arrived. It feels a little early yet, but pressures to have pitches turned around and renovated for the beginning of the new season means we have to start early - so next months challenge is to get the seed up out of the ground and fingers crossed we see the Spring we have all been desperately wishing for, to arrive.