Finishing Mower

A rotary mower, typically tractor powered (by PTO) and connected to the 3-point linkage. It will often have 3 blades in a single deck, with typical cutting widths of 1.5m-2.1m. The height of cut adjustments might range from about 20mm – 110mm, depending on the make and model. It is also called a Grooming Mower.

  Forking

The action of using a hand fork to penetrate the turf surface and into the soil profile. Walking, playing or maintenance activities can all contribute to compaction occurring, especially in the top layer of a soil, and particularly if soil conditions are unsuitable for activities to take place on them.

  Forking Up

The use of a small border fork, or similar, to carefully raise up, or prise up, indentations that have been made in a sward. Once an area has been forked-up then it is often lightly firmed by applying foot pressure to gently tamp the area down to ensure an even finish is produced.

  Fracture Tine

A solid, heavy duty, rectangular slit-chisel type tine, with one side angled at about 45 degree towards the lower part of the blade. These tines might have a thickness of about 12mm and be slightly offset from a central line to encourage a disturbance of the soil, or a ‘fracturing’, when penetrating the soil. The thickness of the tines enables them to be used on more compacted surfaces, at renovation time to aid better incorporation of top-dressing, in contrast to when using slit tines, and without removing soil cores as when using hollow tines. Surface disturbance will, however, be greater th

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  Fraise Activities

A natural turf surface renovation practice with differing degrees of impact, from a medium-severe scarification through to stripping off a layer of soil and vegetation. It is sometimes also spelt as Frase, Fraze or Fraize. The Fraise activities can also be considered as just fraise mowing but with different degrees of severity.

  Fraise Mowing

A medium-severe scarification, or scouring, activity which removes weakly rooted vegetation, especially annual meadow grass, but leaves the crowns of the more desirable turfgrasses such as perennial ryegrass, where they are well-established with good root strength. This activity is suitable where there are low amounts of surface organic matter. Two passes might be carried out to ensure a clean layer is left prior to cultivation.

  Fraise Planing

The complete stripping off of the vegetation layer, any organic layer along with a certain depth of rootzone, which can be up to 50mm, and which may be contaminated or with a poor infiltration rate. A new layer of rootzone would need to be added and well-mixed into the existing rootzone to ensure a root break layer is not produced. An example of a type of specialist equipment capable of this action is the Terraplane.

  Fraise Top-Off

This will strip off the surface vegetation, with a shallow rootzone layer including and any underlying organic layer. This will leave the underlying rootzone layer ready to be cultivated prior to seeding, with two passes being carried out to ensure a clean layer is left prior to cultivation.

  Fraise Topping

This is a severe scarification, or scouring, of a surface, which will remove all, or nearly all, of the green vegetation, along with a significant amount of underlying organic material. This is particularly useful where there is a high percentage of annual meadow grass present within a sward. This will leave the underlying rootzone layer ready to be cultivated prior to seeding.

  Frequency of Clip (FOC)

The rate at which the grass leaf is cut, typically being measured in cuts per linear metre.