For
contractors Avon Sportsground Maintenance, when it comes to the overseeding of
bowling greens it’s the fine fescue and browntop bent blend of J Green that is
sown every time.
Delivering
hardwearing but slow growing surfaces, the mixture from the Johnsons Sports Seed range is
used on all 47 greens in the Bristol and Bath area currently under the remit of
owner Matt Phillips and his team.
There isn’t much that Matt
doesn’t know about looking after bowling greens, the company founded by his
father in 1980 and Matt joining just four years later at the age of 16.
“In
contrast to other sports where foot traffic is more evenly distributed, in
bowls, players are relatively static meaning we need a sward that will give us
good coverage and has tolerance of high wear” he explains. “We’ve been using
Johnsons J Green for several years for exactly this reason – it ticks all of
the boxes.”
Incorporating top-rated fine
fescues and bent grass cultivars, J Green delivers fast sustainable surfaces
with excellent disease resistance, summer colour and enhanced shoot density –
helping to reduce poa invasion. “The thick, dense coverage also helps us to
keep moss at bay which is becoming evermore important with the reduction of
chemicals at our disposal.”
Matt continues, “Not only do we
want to produce bowling greens that perform to the highest standard, we also
have to be thinking of the future and, particularly, how we manage disease and
pests. For this, we need cultivars that are more resistant to disease. J Green
not only helps us to achieve cleaner and healthier surfaces across all of our
sites, we find that any outbreaks are incredibly limited and the resulting
scarring is easy to rectify with some targeted overseeing in the spring.
Because of this, we have all-but eliminated our use of fungicides.”
With the programme performing
year after year, and the clubs extremely pleased with the results, Matt and his
local DLF Regional Technical Manager Ian Barnett have – actually very little -
to discuss as they look ahead to the next renovation season this September!
“We’ve got a great team, a great programme and great seed to match but Ian’s
not complacent and will still check-in regularly to make sure everything is all
OK. We wouldn’t even consider using anything else” he concludes.
