This is the FEBRUARY installment of HortWeek's month-by-month guide to essential maintenance and management tasks for turf and sports facilities such as bowling greens, cricket pitches, football pitches, rugby pitches, golf, lawns and other recreational and fine turf.
All turf areas
- If ground is frosty or very wet keep off
- Check for disease activity and treat appropriately
- Remove dew and worm casts when possible
- Winter feed
Winter games pitches
- Continue divoting and maintaining an even surface
- Overmark as necessary
- Apply seed and sand to goal mouth and centre circle
- Continue aerating with solid tines, brushing and harrowing
- Mow to 35mm for football and 50mm for rugby
Golf
- Use pin replacements to spread wear around green
- Mow greens to 8mm, tees to 12mm and fairways to 18mm
- Deep aerate fairways, slit or chisel tine greens and tees
- Brush or switch greens
- Finish winter work to bunkers, pathways and trees
- Refurbish course furniture
Bowls
- Finish repairs
- Apply turf hardener
- Mow to 10mm
- Aerate with slit tines, gradually moving to solid tines when possible
- Hollow tine high spots with hand tools
- Brush or switch daily
- Light rolling could be beneficial
- Clean ditches
Cricket
- Trim back to 20-25mm
- Spike to 125mm if conditions permit
Lawns
- Give lawns a light trim to 12mm for ornamental use or 18mm for general use
- Continue spiking
- Finish repairs
*Jobs should only be undertaken when ground and weather conditions are suitable and will vary according to location and may vary significantly from year to year. And remember that while the year nicely divides into 12 months, activities often overlap.
- SEE SALLY DRURY'S TURF TASKS MONTHLY CHECKLISTS FOR THE WHOLE YEAR
