FOR BETTER LAWNS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 110, 5 November 1937, Page 4

FOR BETTER LAWNS

LABOUR IN BRITAIN

GREEN-KEEPING RESEARCH

HELP FOR SPORTSMEN

There is a story of an American visitor who sought the recipe for a perfect lawn from the -gardener who tended the greens around an English cathedral, says a writer in the "Manchester Guardian." There was no such grass in her country, she said, and she wanted to know how it was done. She was told that the main thing was to sow the seed and then roll it and roll it and roll it for a few hundred years. But more than rolling, rolling, and rolling is necessary to make the perfect green, and the real irony is that serious scientific investigation of the problem of green-keeping began in the United States of America as long ago as 1885. In this country the Board of Greenkeeping Research did not come into existence until 1929. Mr. R. B. Davvson, the director of its research station at Bingley, has said on more than one occasion that few of the "perfect lawns" of this country are by any means perfect, for imperfections are often cloaked by a beautiful setting; and even some of the most perfect would not be suitable for a good golf course or bowling green. CONCERNED WITH GOLF. The British Board of Greenkeeping Research is concerned primarily with golf.- In May, 1924, the Green Committee of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club began at St. Andrews ah effort to establish a research' ■< board for greenkeeping which led finally, in 1929, to the British Golf Unions' Joint Advisory Committee setting up the Greenkeeping Board with'a promise of support in money from the four national golf unions. v But although the main reason for the St. lyes ; Research Station at Bingley is to advisa on the. improvement and maintenance of golf courses, the results of its researches apply directly or indirectly to other sports greens and ornamental lawns. A number of sports clubs and associations, public authorities, and private" individuals subscribe to the board's work, and work directly for their benefit is done at Bingley, such as on the production of a strain of grass suitable for the hard wear of the football field. Grass is a highly complex subject agriculturally. For sport and ornamental purposes it is perhaps more so. Fewer desirable grass species enter into the picture, which means that there are more undesirables. The need is for a grass which, though kept close-cropped, yields a constant and adequate cover and wiL remain green without becoming slippery throughout the year. There are questions of the best grasses and the best strains to use of soil (many golf courses are on land of low fertility), of top-dress-ings and fertilisers, of the effect of cutting at different lengths and freauencies, of weed invasion, of the depredations of pests, and of mysterious fungoid diseases. . THINGS EASILY GO WRONG. In' the absence of the kind of advice that Mr. Dawson and his colleagues give, things may easily go wrong,^as is proved by many _of the 400 to"SQO soil samples which come for analysis each year. The sample is a round piece of turf six inches ..or so dgep with the layers of dressmgs. over itev* eral years clearly discernible, ww1 often there will be a layer showing no cohesion with its neighbours, indicative of some mistake in its past, most probably a bad dressing. The outdoor research work at Bingley is largely on a seven-acre plot which at first looks like an immense lawn with a perfect golf green, and "approach" at the far end, but. looking again, the huge lawn is seen to be a large number of <rass plots each more or less different from its neighbour. - The dividing-line is strikingly clear, and so, even at a distance, it is obvious that profound differences are produced according to the treatment or the grosses used. Here are plots of New Zealand Agrostis (bent) cut at one-oighth, a quarter, and threeeighths of an inch for the study of the effect of the height of cut on weed flora; another series of 64 plots for investigating the effect of cutting once a week or three times a week at cuts of an eighth or threeeighths of an inch; and another of 128 plots for comparing the results of different dressings of phosphate and nitrogen, against phosphate and no nitrogen. In one corner is a neglected portion to develop moss for experiments to come.* There are plots to demonstrate the virtue of indigenous strains, like the bent from a Keighley golf course or from the hillside above the station and the fescue from the marshes of Morecambe Bay; plots to show the superiority of turf which has been punched with little holes by special forks, for it is more. droughtresistant, arid which type of fork is best, the solid or the tubular; plots to I test the best form of compost dressing.' . . ' ;■■■'' ' ' THE DAILY MOW. Phosphates and lime make the green resist drought better, but they bring weeds. The, sterilisation of -top-dress-ing appears to prevent the introduction of weed seeds. Frequent, even daily, mowing (as at Hendon) is increasingly the modern practice, but mowing should not be done always in the same direction, as this causes ridges, but at different angles. Sea sand introduces the lime effect into turf, but inland sand does not. Leather-jackets can be exterminated with the St. Ives Leatherjacket Exterminator, discovered at the station, and experimental plots for the control of earthworms by lead arsenate dressings are giving excellent results. . So it goes on,- and this is only part of the station's work. The laboratories have dealt with over 900 samples this year so far; the record-room holds flies which give a detailed day-to-day history of every plot and experiment in terms of the number of worm-casts or the seeding, the raking, the mowing, or any other treatment given, and a large office staff is needed to deal with the correspondence and its filing so that each subscribing club has its folder, making a history of its case. There were nearly 2000 advisory visits made all over the country, and it is the experimental plots, which are not only at Bingley—there is one on the Wilmslow golf course—together with the laboratory work, which supply the groundwork for advice. THE PERFECT GREEN. Bingley is also concerned in the selection and in the breeding of the right grasses. Bent and fescue are the grasses for a fine green, but there are wide differences in varieties or strains. "The perfect green and "approach" which share the .seven acres with the experimental plots show what has been accomplished by selection, for the station's strains are used in it, including the fescue from the marshes of Morecambe Bay and the bent from the hillside, Another example of the station's work in grass improvement is in 800 square yards of velvet bent which will probably be transferred to Shipley golf course for real testing soon. .'•■"' At St. Ives the practical side is emphasised all the time. 'Green committees, secretaries, greenkeepers, "and

all interested in turf cultivation" £«>. welcome visitors at the appointed times, and a library for greenkeepera to borrow from and an annual greenkeepers' conference are important features in the station's work.

A disappointment at the station is the abandoned bowling-green experiment, for Mr. Dawson had intended to test: the best foundation for a bowling green. But there is work' and to 6par» for all his present staff. If only all lawn and green and playing field inquiries came to Bingley, and if all golt clubs, sports clubs, and others wha benefit directly or indirectly by the station's work made their modest contribution, there could be the staff and the equipment for the several investigations which the station is in a position to conduct. Two main factors affect the development of St Ives as the central advisory and research-authority on sports and ornamental grass.. There must be a full appreciation that grass, in a sporting sense, is a specialist's job, and there needs to be some understanding among the local advisory officer;) of the Ministry of Agriculture and agricultural scientists generally that it is the proper place to which to refer greenkeeping problems. . ' . .