Soil / Rootzone Analysis
The importance of soil / rootzone testing & analysis
In order for greenkeepers and turf managers to be able to create an effective maintenance programme for your bowls green, playing surface or fine turf verdant, several key components of soil / rootzone must first be tested, including: nutrients, pH, CEC, and organic matter. Regular soil / rootzone analysis is an essential part of any greenkeepers or turf managers' toolbox. Initially, it allows the greenkeeper the information to be able to compose a programme of fertilisation and cultural practices to begin improving the soil / rootzone and grass sward and then to be able to maintain them to a high standard. It allows the greenkeeper to help identify and predict the availability of nutrient levels and micro-biology for optimum grass plant growth and improvement of your playing surface. Bowls greens as with all sports surfaces by their nature will experience plenty of various stresses throughout their lifetime. In order to be able to encourage and maintain soil / rootzone and grass plant health, quality and performance; bowls greens and fine turf areas must receive all the oxygen, water, nutrients and microbiology they require. In conclusion, soil / root zone testing and analysis is vital to give greenkeepers the information they require to produce high quality performance bowls greens and fine turf areas.
The Soil / Rootzone Report
There are many companies that offer soil / rootzone testing and analysis. However, the reports will resemble this one recently obtained by one of our clients, whereby the chemical analysis is presented to you in an easy to read format.
Testimony
We recommend all our new clients to obtain a soil / rootzone test and analysis of their green / fine turf area as we commence our BioTurf organic maintenance. This provides the client and ourselves with a starting point we can compare all future analysis against, thus confirming where we are making improvements and where we may require to bespoke our maintenance programme for an individual green or fine turf area. We recommend annual testing and analysis. Our client Romford Bowls Club commenced our BioTurf organic maintenance programme January 2023, obtained their first test results and analysis 5th May 2023 and their second test result and analysis 29th September 2023. In just five months we were able to produce significant improvements across their root zone, backed by their chemical soil / rootzone testing and analysis carried out by Bowls-Central.co.uk. The author of their report commented "Overall this is a good set of results in terms of soil chemistry, with some nice improvements since last time."