Milestones in Grounds Care

Significant milestones within the field of grounds care can be quite subjective, often being reflected by the personal experiences of the individual choosing the milestone, so there can clearly be many interpretations and debates as to what might be considered a milestone. One simple definition might be that of a event or activity which has significantly influenced the maintenance and management of turfgrass surfaces and which might not be the first instance of the event or activity.

Here are five candidates for significant milestones:
The mechanical lawn mower invented by Edwin Budding in 1830 as the starting point for the gradual development of improved sports and amenity turfgrass surfaces. The mechanical mower is in contrast to the more traditional methods of scything, or animal control (especially sheep) to keep grass cut and relatively short.

Manhattan was the first improved turf perennial ryegrass cultivar, being developed 1967, with production ending in 1986. Whilst another cultivar, Linn, was released in 1961, this didn't have the same turf type qualities as Manhattan. The extent of sports turf surfaces using perennial ryegrass as its core species owes a significant debt of gratitude to this grass as it arguably trail-blazed the way to the hard-wearing cultivars we have today, enabling more games to be played on a surface and to an overall good standard of quality, assuming adequate resources are available.

The impact of grass cutting height on root growth. Research from 1955 identified the effects of removing different percentages of leaf height from a sward. Whilst the research was on heights of grass from 1" to 3", it laid the foundation for the 'not to remove more than 1/3rd of the grass leaf per cut mowing rule'. "Removals during the growing season of half or more of the foliage of grasses—cool- and warm-season species including bunch, rhizomatous, and stoloniferous types—caused root growth to stop for a time after each removal, with one exception." (Crider, F.J. (1955) 'Root growth stoppage resulting from defoliation of grass, Technical Bulletin No. 1102, USDA.

Sand/gravel drainage slits to improve the relatively rapid removal of surface and sub-surface water. The design and installation of these slits from the mid-1970s onwards helped to gradually improve the carrying capacity of winter games pitches and with the invention of effective and efficient machinery we have arrived at a situation today whereby many playing field areas can, or could, be upgraded to sustain greater usage, although there are significant cost implications. "The sand slit is a logical development of a French drain and is in no sense a new idea. Although a number of sportsfields including the pitches at Twickenham and Cardiff Arms Park have had sand slits inserted, a major stumbling block still is the lack of machinery which can insert slits and leave a true playing surface." (Adams, W.A., Stewart, V.I., & Thornton, D.J. (1971) 'The assessment of sands suitable for use in sportsfields', in The Journal of The Sports Turf Research Institute, No. 47, 1971, pp82-83)

Deep aeration-decompaction. The Charterhouse (as it was then) Verti-drain, which arrived in the UK in 1982 from The Netherlands. The author started his career on a golf course in 1981 and remembers the excitement of this new piece of machinery being made available in the UK, with his course first having work carried out on the fairways and greens by a contractor in 1983 (or 1984).This was a major leap forward in that not only was a soil profile able to be deep aerated (through punch action) but that, with adjustments, the tines could be made to shatter the soil profile, increasing fissuring and the amount of air passages within the soil profile: Always under the assumption that the work was carried out under the right soil conditions. Other deep aeration-decompaction machines have since been developed and are now part of routine maintenance activities for many pitches and golf courses. (‘Verti-draining' in ‘The Care of the Golf Course' (1992), edited by Hayes, P., Evans, R.D.C. & Isaac, S.P. pp86-87)