Module 8:

8.4 Creating an annual maintenance schedule

8.4.1 Activity: Estimating a mowing schedule

1   For your own football pitch, or one you are familiar with, how many times do you think the pitch is typically cut during April?

This isn’t a trick question. It doesn’t matter what your answer is for this question, it’s just used to kick-start your thought processes.

If the pitch is typically cut weekly, then it might be 4 or 5 times during that month. If it is cut twice a week then it might be 8 or 10 times, whilst at three times each week it might be 12 or 15 times during the month. Or it might be more, or even less.

2   Now, if you think back to the diagram that we recently used to illustrate grass growth over the year, you will be able to see that some months will typically have much stronger growth than others.

We’ve produced the graphic here again to save looking back for it. It is reasonable to say that where the grass is growing a lot more actively when compared with slow growth periods, then it will require cutting more frequently if the height of the grass on the pitch is to stay within the desired range for a chosen pitch grade.

3   In module 2, section 2.3.7 we also introduced some example values for a range of different performance standards. We have reproduced the values for the height of the grass sward for the period that is in-between games in the following table.

The pitch will typically be mown at a fairly consistent height for a game on match day. However, outside of this the grass can be left to grow a bit longer to help encourage deeper root growth and to enhance sward resilience.

We now need to consider some maths, so hopefully we’ve presented it in an understandable way.

Before we start to consider what might be a theoretical mowing regime, we want to remember that removing much more than 1/3rd of the leaf height during a mowing session will stop or reduce root development for a period of time. This is detrimental to the production of a good playing surface and will affect pitch performance, so we will be paying particular attention to how much can be removed each cut.