November top tips
These winter top tips will largely be applicable between November – February
- Know when to keep off – sometimes doing nothing is the best policy
Rain, frost, snow and ice can have a big impact on maintenance works. If the soil is wet and soft or there is leaf frost, don’t use machinery on your pitch as it will likely cause damage to your pitch.
As keen as you might be to make the most of the time available to you, sometimes the best decision is to do nothing at all.
- Drain down
Before weather gets to freezing temperatures, it’s crucial to winterproof your watering equipment to prevent damage over the winter months. If you have a comprehensive irrigation system that incorporates tanks, pumps, controllers, sprinklers etc., consider scheduling a professional to carry out this maintenance. Otherwise follow guidelines from manufacturers, that may include:
- If you have storage tanks, once rainfall becomes more regular make sure to empty these gradually by irrigating the playing area and shutting down the water supply to the tanks.
- Shut off the main water supply to the irrigation.
- If applicable for your system, manually open sprinkler heads or open drain valves to relieve pressure.
- Check through each area individually to ensure pipes, valves and sprinkler heads (if applicable) are drained.
- Remove and store any removable components.
- Use pipe insulation or heat tape can help to prevent the freezing of above ground pipes.
- Make sure you have drained your pumps down, as they can be very susceptible to frost damage. This is because they sit above ground, and unlike ground pipes may not be insulated.
- Prevention rather than cure
When it comes to limiting the risk or standing water and match cancellations, preventative maintenance is key. This is especially true if you have a poorly draining pitch, localised wet spots or live in an area of high rainfall. It may sound obvious, but keep a keen eye on weather forecasts and put the steps in place to carry out maintenance before bad weather arrives. This might include:
- Mowing and marking days in advance
- Hand forking and top-dressing areas that drain poorly
- Checking drainage systems are performing as they should
- Making use of rain covers
- Deep spiking a pitch to aid drainage
- Pre-warning club officers, coaches, volunteers of the weather to come.
Many of these tasks are less effective or even damaging once poor weather arrives so try and be proactive in your maintenance where possible.
- Deep spiking? Timing is everything
A running theme this month is how crucial correctly timing our maintenance tasks is, and deep spiking is a particularly good example of this. If you spike your pitch to relieve compaction, yet do this in saturated conditions, you will likely just seal the pitch surface with the front and rear rollers. What’s more, the spiking tines will smear the soil, creating lots of impermeable holes full of water the next time it rains. The outcome will be that your attempts to improve drainage actually have the opposite effect, making it worse.
Any decompaction or aeration works best when the soil is moist but not wet. You should also avoid deep spiking when any frost is forecast. This is because pitches with lots of holes will freeze a lot harder with ground frost, and the frost takes much longer to come out. You will also be creating holes straight down to the grass roots meaning they can be shocked and stressed by cold air, negatively impacting grass health.
5. Goal areas
Following a busy start to the season November is usually the month where goal areas start to show wear, especially if we’ve had bad weather and lots of rain in October. Hand forking, little and often applications of top dressing and over-seeding (temperatures allowing) can help to keep goal areas level, dry and green for longer. For further guidance around the steps to take please follow the link below.