Football Pitch Rolling or firming

Rolling is not task which would be carried out as a matter of routine on a football pitch.

The negative effects of soil compaction and soil smearing will contribute to a significant deterioration of the playing surface.

The only type of roller which might be used, primarily for presentation purposes and the light firming of replaced divots and newly seeded areas is a narrow diameter one, typically also being about 1.8m or so in width. These types of roller are often present on many tractor mounted rotary mowers, plus on combination grooming tools, such as the Quadraplay.

Care still needs to be taken using these rollers to avoid surface soil smearing in moist to wet conditions.

Only a light firming should typically be carried out if the pitch shows characteristics that required this activity.

In addition, it would only, typically, be carried out when soil conditions are slightly moist to drier (but not excessively dry). This is below what would be termed field capacity for the soil moisture content.

The reason being that optimum compaction (which is undesirable) is typically caused when mechanical activities take place when a soil is at, or near to its field capacity.