Bowling Green: How to achieve even and medium to faster paced greens?

The commonest short-term approach is to lower the height of cut, however, this produces significant medium and long-term problems and is arguably the major cause of poor bowling greens. Applying maintenance practices in a sensible way, without needing to spend often limited monies on unnecessary materials, can be achieved by carrying out the following:

• Double cut to produce a smoother and firmer surface; consider doing this in preparation for the more importance games; The weight of the rear roller on a cylinder mower will provide all the firming that is needed on a bowling green; there should not be any need for additional rolling from a dedicated roller.
• Groom and verticut routinely to keep grass stems and leaves in an upright position.
• Reduce irrigation: keep the surface as dry as practicable; roots will venture downwards to explore the rootzone to extract available water. Don’t worry too much about the grass being a dark green colour during the summer period as grass will naturally respond to drying conditions by turning a lighter green / straw colour.
• Try and encourage the Red Fescue grass species by providing a drier rootzone, low nutrient input and a relative high height of cut; this will actually produce a faster surface than a lower cut annual meadow grass sward.
• Reduce annual meadow grass content.
• Maintain a complete and uniform ground coverage: Spread play as evenly as possible over all rinks and in both directions of play.
• Keep thatch levels low. Aim to have no more than 12mm of fibrous thatch, ideally 3mm to 5mm to aid sward resilience. Aim to reduce spongy thatch to as low a level as possible. Thatch is arguably the biggest problem to do with slower green speeds.
• Keep the green well-drained and the rootzone well-aerated.
• Keep the surface layer well-aerated over the summer period. The use of a spiked roller is ideal at this time of year.
• Keep nutrient levels relatively low and do not apply high quantities of nitrogen as this will force growth create soft lush conditions which slow the bowl. A trickle feed of nutrients is more appropriate.
• Encourage good root growth: roots help to dry a soil profile; improve the wearability of a surface; improves drought resistance; reduces irrigation input needs.
• Top-dress appropriately and incorporate it into the sward as quickly as possible.

The draw of a bowl is affected by the same factors as those which influence green speed, so a well-maintained green will not only have a good pace but also a good draw.