Sports Turf Improvement with Green Compost Application
Developing green compost products for the sports turf industry will add value to compost products. Compost can be used for a number of sports turf related practices including turf establishment, topdressing, turf renovation and also soil compaction reduction.
Applications of compost greatly improve soil structure and nutrient levels, and can suppress soil-borne plant diseases. Various composts have been used successfully for turf establishment and renovation, most notably in the USA, where a great deal of research and technology transfer has been carried out in recent years.
Golf Course Topdressing
To encourage Essex based sports turf managers and groundsmen to use compost, ReMaDe Essex has set up a trial to investigate how well compost topdressing compares with a standard topdressing mix used on many golf courses.
The trial is currently being run at Lexden Wood Golf Club located just outside Colchester. Four different top dressing treatment types are being evaluated within the trial and these are:
- Treatment 1: Untreated control
- Treatment 2: Standard top dressing at 12.5 tonnes per hectare
- Treatment 3: Green compost at 25 tonnes per hectare: ¼ inch or 6mm top dressing
- Treatment 4: Green compost at 50 tonnes per hectare: ½ inch or 12 mm top dressing
This photograph and diagram below show the layout of trial plot on the fairway. As can be seen from the picture the 'greening up' of the grass is much more evident in the areas which have been treated with compost.
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These treatments have been applied to areas of a tee and fairway to see what effect the application has on the different turf areas.
Each treatment is being assessed for its effects on:
- Turfgrass density
- Turfgrass vigour
- Foliage colour
- Weed count
- Disease presence
The treatments were applied in early September 2002 and monitoring will continue into 2003. A full report will be produced at the conclusion of the study to show the final results from the trial. The initial observations indicate that the compost topdressings are outperforming the golf courses standard topdressing.
The compost for this trial was supplied by Viridor Waste Management, Foxhall.
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