Don’t score an own goal with your borehole

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Don’t score an own goal with your borehole: Last November Norwich City Football Club was named joint fifth in a sustainability league table of all 20 Premier League clubs. 

The table was compiled by BBC Sport, working with the United Nations-backed Sport Positive Summit, and one of the reasons for the club’s success was the fact its Carrow Road pitch is watered via a borehole and the training ground recycles the water from the pitches.

Don’t score an own goal with your borehole

The reality is that many football clubs and other sports facilities, such as golf courses and racecourses, rely on boreholes for the critical irrigation of their sports turf.

Having your own private water supply delivers guaranteed water delivery and keeps costs down, but it also comes with the need to meet certain goals, says Mike Deed, Managing Director of Geoquip Water Solutions, experts in borehole management.

“A lot of the big football clubs have several wells which provide water to their network of training pitches and main ground,” he said.

“It is absolutely essential that playing surfaces are irrigated to the best possible standard and remain in tip top condition throughout the season. If water quality or quantity is affected by borehole problems, then the impact can be wide-ranging.

“Investing in a borehole is a significant capital investment, but given the cost of mains water and the fact that a typical borehole will be expected to deliver a return on investment in less than four years, it can also be very worthwhile – providing you take good care of it.”

The trick, he says, is to make sure that an ongoing monitoring and maintenance programme is built in from day one.

“All too often, borehole owners take a ‘fit and forget’ approach in that they fit the borehole and expect it to continue delivering maximum yield without any proactive maintenance.

“In football terms, it would be like fielding your best team for every single match without addressing their physical or mental needs or considering how they might be able to keep delivering their best without any care or attention.”

Typical borehole problems are likely to include reduced yield, a change in the quality of water and/ or a drop in water pressure.

All three can be caused by contamination, such as iron-related bacteria, iron oxide, manganese oxide and calcium carbonate deposits affecting the pumps, pipes and motors.

Don’t score an own goal with your borehole

If too much iron in the water is allowed to build up, it can cause brown staining on hard and soft landscaping and infrastructure (such as buildings), another reason why boreholes need to be regularly treated.

Other problems will include the encrustation of casings and pipes, clogging of filters – preventing the free entry of groundwater, and potential damage to the borehole wall or pumping equipment.

A monitoring and telemetry programme, with the installation of bespoke panels and dashboards, enables remote data collection from each borehole, allowing the user to see issues such as draw down, water pressure, general temperature and also the temperature of the motor.

Triggers and alarm points can be added to raise alerts when faults or particular combinations of problems arise, enabling early preventive action to take place.

Downhole cameras also provide a bird’s eye view into the heart of the borehole, allowing images to be taken and, from there, essential decisions regarding maintenance can be taken before the condition of the turf is potentially impacted by poor water quality.

Geoquip works with a number of partners, including Nicholls Boreholes, which recently helped one Premiership club struggling with dwindling yields from its two existing wells.

After site visits and a consultation process, the Nicholls team recommended a BoreSaver Ultra C Pro treatment solution, which now includes a biodegradable marker to guarantee that no chemical residue is left in the water.

A special system was put in place to capture the iron for licensed disposal and the clean water was discharged through the club’s drainage system without fear of causing any blockage or contamination.

As a result, both the club and the Nicholls’ team saw an immediate increase in yield and are now considering a regular treatment plan.

STRIving for success

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STRIving for success: Scott MacCallum returned to an old haunt to learn about the phenomenal transformation that has taken place at the STRI.

You invariably get a nice warm feeling when you return somewhere that you haven’t been to in some time. It might be a holiday destination, a pub in one of your old haunts, or just the town where you grew up.

STRIving for success

For me, the most recent example of this, and forgive me if this sounds a little geeky, was the STRI in Bingley, West Yorkshire. It must have been at least 15 years since I last visited, but driving up through the country park and seeing those unassuming looking offices set behind a wall brought back some lovely memories.

That there was a specially-reserved parking space for Turf Matters made it all the more special.

Once I was inside, however, it became apparent that while everything appeared to be extremely similar to what I’d seen a decade and a half before the STRI is now a very different animal.

What was once the go-to body for commercial testing of grass varieties, chemicals and the like; the body, which boasted state-of-theart research laboratories producing ground-breaking innovation, and whose agronomists where to goto guys for golf clubs and sports facilities throughout the land, now has so many more strings to its bow.

Indeed, what was once a hardearned reputation which opened doors UK-wide is now a body with a worldwide reputation, and one which has contributed to the success of some of the biggest sporting events on the planet.

One man who has been with the Institute throughout this remarkable metamorphosis is Richard Stuttart, who joined the STRI in 2003 as a Pesticide Trials Controller straight from university and rose to his current position as Head of Consultancy.

STRIving for success

“You can track the change back to not long before the end of the 2000s, when we were approached by FIFA to assist them with the World Cup
in South Africa. It’s not something which we had done before, but we were brought in because the pitches due to be used for the World Cup were struggling and not at the level they should have been. It was a serious problem,” explained Richard, who also sits on the Institute’s Executive Management Team.

The STRI was brought in with a mere 100 days to go before the start of what proved to be a vibrant and exciting World Cup. If you remember, the assault on the eardrums from the vuluzelas was a constant reminder that this particular World Cup was the first to be held on the African continent.

However, had the STRI not become involved, it may not have been the ringing in our ears for which the 2010 World Cup would have been remembered, but the less than satisfactory playing surfaces.

“Standards are massively variable all over the world so that’s why FIFA engaged us. We assessed all the venues and put management strategies in place to bring them up to speed,” said Richard, adding that it was not just for all for all the main pitches but all the training pitches as well.

It was a mighty task, made all the more so by the fact that in some instances there was only a matter of weeks in which to affect an improvement, but making a success of what was perhaps not Mission Impossible but more Mission Extremely Difficult was what put the STRI on the world map.

“A door had been opened and it was just the kind of big step which allowed us to become involved with other worldwide sporting bodies.”

And there is none larger that the Olympics, and with London 2012 just around the corner it was another huge opportunity for the STRI to strut its stuff on the world stage.

“It was another big turning point for us as we were engaged by the London Organising Committee to design and build the Equestrian track in Greenwich Park. This was a massive change for us as it meant we were also involved in the planning of the project.”

Managed by another man in Lee Penrose, who has risen through the ranks at the STRI, from work experience placement to become Group Director, the Institute was the principle contractor in building the track, then running it through the Olympics themselves, and then spent three years reinstating the park for its post-Olympic life.

“The park ended up in better condition than it started, which was a big scoop for us,” recalled Richard.

“Being involved in events like the World Cup and the Olympics have brought it to where we are right now and it is thanks to people like Lee, who thought outside the box with regard to the Greenwich Park project, which has got us to the stage where we now have an organisation and people with the skill sets to make these big steps forward.”

The portfolio of services and skills available through the STRI now is truly extensive – Research & Development, Sports Surfaces Design & Construction, Product Testing & Material Analysis, Stadia Pitch Design and Management, Agronomy & Ecology, Sportsturf Consultancy, Planning, Drainage & Irrigation, Aviation, Environment, Green Spaces and Training.

It is so much wider than the previous incarnation of the Institute and not only has the offering to the client become much greater the global reach has developed as well.

The STRI now has bases in Brisbane and Melbourne in Australia as well as Qatar, China and Hong Kong and the name Sports Turf Research Institute is known and
revered everywhere sport is played.

Indeed there are no real equivalents anywhere else.

“There are a number of smaller organisations, and some US universitybased Institutes but they don’t tend to have the range of staff under one roof which we have here. Having been established since 1929 the experts we have gathered under one roof is quite exceptional. Some of those staff have been here for a long time,” said Richard.

STRIving for success

As the man who leads the consultancy department, which offers an A-Z, start to finish service, of Plan – Design – Build – Operate Richard is well place to talk about current requirements for any new or renovation projects and what is being worked on at present.

“I’ve got a staff of five. We have just appointed a higher level Planning Environment Manager and the team has the capability of producing Environmental Impact Assessments, within which we have associates we can bring in to assess the archaeological, cultural heritage, traffic and transport elements of an EIA.

“The fact that we can provide the whole package, that plan, design, build and operate, is where we have our USP and we are able to achieve planning permissions for golf courses and sporting facilities, in challenging environments which is extremely valuable as golf courses are often planned for designated or protected land sites,” said Richard.

The build side has become more significant to the STRI since they established the construction company Carrick Sport, based out of Cumbernauld in Scotland. The company was founded in 2018 and has already been responsible or the recently built pitch at Tynecastle, home of Hearts.

One of the most exciting projects currently underway is in Saudi Arabia for the Riyahd Equestrian Club. The world’s richest horse racing event is being held there on February 29, 2020, and the STRI have been commissioned to covert the allweather track into a grass track.

“We have had staff working over there for some time and, as it is the Saudi winter, the track is being sown out with cool weather grasses. It is another very exciting project for us.”

While the STRI’s worldwide reputation grows at apace the traditional work in the laboratories and on the testing plots continues to be carried out. Indeed, the annual STRI seed booklet remains a must read for everyone in the industry.

Mark Ferguson is one of STRI’s Research Managers and also the Institute’s Mr Wimbledon, spending
time at the All England Club offering agronomic advice and taking court performance measurements to ensure that Neil Stubley has all the data he requires to produce pristine surfaces for the most important tennis event of the year.

STRIving for success

Mark was keen to show me some of the innovative work that is being carried out in addition to the regular patchwork of testing plots for varieties and grass species.

Green roof technology is being trialled which obviously has potential environmental benefits which stretch far beyond the sports’ brief more
associated with the Institute.

“There are a lot of green roofs now within urban landscape developments as they are required to meet certain requirements. What we are doing here helps them meet those requirements. They look good and tick an awful lot of boxes,” explained Mark.

Another product being tested on the extensive site is Permavoid, a product which interested the STRI so much that they took an interest in the company.

“Permavoid is a plastic layer which can replace the gravel banding within a rootzone. It is a really good product and can be placed under any construction whatsoever. It’s been in Holland for years and we think that most water directives or regulations for the building of new sports surfaces will be required to use this to hold water or take water away. You can also put a wick in it to draw moisture up and act as sub surface irrigation,” explained Mark.

It goes to show that while the STRI’s horizons are wider than ever, research is still at the core of the company and continues to produce great results.

I certainly hope that it won’t be 15 years until I return to Bingley but I am sure that however short the break is between this and my next visit there will be more change and more exciting work to discuss.

I just hope that there will still be my reserved Turf Matters parking space.

Full steam ahead

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Full steam ahead: Iseki UK was launched in 2017 into a rocky economic environment but with exactly the right man steering the ship. Two years on David Withers has proven his worth as a “Captain” and the company, now based in Ipswich, is making steady progress. 

“We are up on last year which is pretty good,” said David, in answer to the most obvious of opening questions – “How are you doing?”

Full steam ahead

“We are going to sell more this year and make less money and the reason for that has been the collapse in the value of the pound.

That’s even more of a problem for a company which brings in all of its goods from Germany and France – 80% Germany and 20% France,” revealed David, who returned to the UK following his time in the States as President and CEO of Jacobsen.

“The economy is not in great shape and causing a lot of uncertainty but the biggest single impact for us is that exchange rate.”

To highlight the point he added that the pound had devalued by 13% in the previous two months and that Iseki had recently been forced to increase its own prices by 3% to 5%.

“We are going to see inflationary pressures coming in and I don’t think that the economy is going to be strong enough for wages to keep up with inflation.”

Like so many other companies Iseki were prepared for the original Brexit timetable of March 31 and had brought in sufficient parts stock to ensure no issues over that period.

“Then it didn’t happen so, having had a good quarter one, when we were doing a lot to prepare, there was a hangover in quarter two and from April things never really got going.

Now we have prepared again and we are once more full of inventory,” said David, speaking a few weeks before the more recent October 31 Brexit date.

The company has secured additional warehouse space, through a relationship with one of the transport companies on the Ipswich Europark with which they share a postcode to cope over the period.

Any issue of delays at ports is not of huge concern to David, given the nature of the Iseki business.

“If our deliveries take an extra week to get through, it will be irritating but it’s not life-threatening,” was his pragmatic view.

As to the wider issue of ensuring the Iseki brand is available the length and breadth of the country the company is making real progress in bolstering its dealer network.

“What has really worked for us is that we have clarified in our minds what our distribution strategy should be. We find that for many of our dealers we are either the simplest and easiest product a dealer sells – because they also deal with combine harvesters or 500 horsepower tractors and forestry harvesters – and we are the lowest value product they sell.

“Conversely, for other dealers, we are at the upper end of their portfolio. They might be selling products like Mountfield, Honda and Stiga, but don’t have a diesel product other than ours. In these cases we are the most complicated product they sell.”

Many dealers, often classic garden dealers, have been asked if they would like to have a diesel offering in their portfolio.

“We are up to about 16 new dealers but we still have some gaps and we have space for another 30 or so.”

Having spent most of his more recent life at the top end of business life – prior to his time at Jacobsen he was Managing Director of Ransomes Jacobsen, based just down the road from his new home on that Ipswich Europark – he is enjoying building a new business from the beginning.

“I enjoy the closeness with the market, the customers and our staff whereas before there were layers between me and the other people.

That’s fun. But there are plusses and minuses. I find booking my own travel intensely irritating, as I’d never had to do that before,” he said with a smile.

Another area of potential expansion for the company may come on the back of that new dealer network.

“I look forward to the business growing and having more resource and ability to do things. For example one of the things you might see us doing over the next 12 months is bolt on additional products to our range.

“We have had a lot of people asking us if we could distribute for them. I didn’t want to do that to begin with as It was important to get Iseki moving, but now that we have all the infrastructure in place and our polices and procedures are in order we will look at it.

“It would be products of similar standard and reliability and that which are complementary to our own products.”

All forward thinking moves and proving once again that, when the seas become rough and the waves are high, having a capable Captain is so important.

Getting turf through winter

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Getting turf through winter: Geoff Fenn, of Advanced Grass Solutions, helps you navigate the trials and tribulations of the winter months.

Autumn and winter are tough for turf. Low light, cold temperatures, poor weather and regular play mean plants can become stressed, weakened and susceptible to disease. What can we do as Turf Managers to maintain quality through a long winter?

Getting turf through winter

With the reduction in availability (and lower curative abilities) of amenity fungicides, putting together an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) plan can help reduce disease outbreaks on your site.

Firstly, do not underestimate the importance of correct nutrition. Understand the growth requirements of your surface and make sure nitrogen inputs will produce the exact level of growth you require. In winter sports with high wear you need a higher level of growth for recovery from divots and scars – monitor your growth rate by measuring clipping yield and change inputs to match the growth your site requires. Do not overfeed, do not underfeed – easier said than done but it’s crucial to get the plant in a healthy state with good carbohydrate reserves going into cold weather.

Pay close attention to the source of nitrogen you use – colder weather requires nitrogen with an ammoniacal or nitrate source as these are instantly available. Urea/methylene urea requires some warmth for bacteria to convert it into a plant-available form.

Everything nutritionally should be balanced – beware of the consequences of over-applying anything – excess nutrition can cause plant stresses that reduce health and bring on disease. Soil health can also be adversely affected by too much iron, sulphur and many other compounds used to the detriment of beneficial soil biology. Try to use products that declare exactly what’s in them so you know what effects these can have both short and long-term.

Try to set aside small trial areas to test if products and practices are genuinely having a beneficial effect on your site. Don’t believe all the hype or claims of products until you have seen good research or proved to yourself they have a benefit to you.

There are times when disease pressure simply overwhelms all the good factors we encourage in our turf and outbreaks happen anyway, but by getting as many things as ‘correct’ as we can, disease can be limited to a level that you may find ‘acceptable’.

What are some of the factors we can use/influence to reduce disease?

• Thatch Control – Reduce the home of pathi
• Nutrition – Get the balance right
• Airflow – Increase airflow around each plant
• Shade – Reduce shade and increase light
• pH – slightly acidic soil and leaf surface will reduce disease
• Dew/Moisture – reduce leaf wetness to prevent infection
• Drainage – keep surfaces firm and dry
• Grass Species – the right species for the right site
• Soil biological management – control thatch and diseases and improve health
• Fungicides – understand active ingredients and when they work best.

Each individual control method may not add up to a significant difference in disease levels but getting many of the pieces in the puzzle lined up correctly, we can reduce fungicide use and reduce disease activity.

Disease spores can live in thatch layers and when conditions are suitable, they will spread and attack the plant. Reduce thatch to minimal levels and you reduce the amount of disease spores. Try to encourage a healthy, balanced microbial population in your soil by adding high quality carbon-rich organic fertilisers and reducing chemical inputs to as low as possible.

This will then ensure natural thatch breakdown by soil microbes is maximised, leading to less invasive thatch removal practices to achieve the desired results.

Encouraging beneficial biology helps create a ‘suppressive soil’ that reduces pathogen populations leading to lessaggressive disease outbreaks. Biology alone cannot stop disease, but it can massively help reduce its impact. An unhealthy anaerobic soil with black layer

SHADE & AIRFLOW

Trees, buildings or spectator stands surrounding your turf cast shade and limit the energy a plant can produce for itself. Plants convert light energy into ‘plant-available’ energy such as sugars and carbohydrates. By cutting off sunlight you are cutting off the potential energy available for each plant and weakening it.

Think of grass plant leaves like mini solar panels – without sufficient sunlight they cannot produce enough energy to keep a healthy plant alive.

Removal of trees you will often also allow better airflow around the plant. This can be just enough to keep the leaf a little bit drier which can reduce disease. Leaf moisture is a key element for Microdochium development.

Apps such as Sun Seeker show the path of the sun and just how little sunlight turf often receives.

The public perception is planting trees is a great idea and removing trees is some form of ‘environmental vandalism’. The truth is sportsturf and trees really are not happy bedfellows. Grass is naturally adapted to open spaces with plenty of light, not shady areas under trees.

There are so many ways of managing turf and no one single correct method. Manage all the elements as best you can on your site is all you can do. You may still get stress and disease – but it will be much less than it could have been.

Can Europe be pesticide-free by 2050?

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Can Europe be pesticide-free by 2050?: With the ecological consequences of food production and agricultural practices coming under increased scrutiny, and being reassessed and remodelled, a leading biopesticide technology developer believes Europe can be free of its reliance upon toxic pesticides by 2050. 

Emerging advances in biopesticides and biostimulants – eco-friendly, nature-based alternatives to the harsh, chemical pesticides we have used for many decades to control pests & diseases and increase yield – are transforming the industry. And they are ushering in a new era of cleaner agronomy that could see Europe being pesticide free in the next 30 years, envisions Dr Minshad Ansari Founder and CEO of Bionema Ltd, UK. Bionema Ltd, a Wales-based BioTech firm, develops natural products to protect crops from pests and diseases and reduce the use of synthetic pesticides.

Can Europe be pesticide-free by 2050?

Minshad chaired the Biopesticides Summit, which was held in July 2019, in Swansea. The Summit gathered hundreds of policy-makers and experts from industry and academia, to discuss the most pressing issues and threats facing crop production today and, crucially, the need to bring more sustainable alternatives to marketplace swiftly.

“We are living in very crucial times for food production and land management. Safe, responsible and sustainable food production is a cornerstone of the continued survival of life, and some of the most exciting solutions to the biggest problems facing food production are to be found within nature,” said Minshad.

“These biopesticides are, in many cases, already being developed or used successfully, and others are well within our grasp. In fact, I believe Europe can be free of its reliance upon toxic pesticides by 2050.

“We are at a point in time where the public is more aware of, or more vocal about their expectations, when it comes to the impact the practices of industry upon our environment. And public scrutiny is a very powerful driver of the practices of the biopesticide industry.

“It is very clear that we have reached a watershed moment. There is a growing acceptance among food producers that practices need to be modernised. There is a groundswell of public awareness that we cannot continue to lean upon traditional, damaging pesticides, some of which we have been using for many decades, to support production,” he said.

“The long-term negative effects of using chemical pesticides on the fertility of our land, and the threat this brings to our survival, is well documented. Also, health experts and scientists have been flagging up links between pesticide use and a host of diseases including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, brain, prostate and kidney cancers, for many years.”

The World Health Organisation reports that pesticides are responsible for up to five million cases of poisoning each year, of which 20,000 are lethal. And, it says, pesticides affect children and infants disproportionately.

Can Europe be pesticide-free by 2050?

“The evidence to support wholesale change is there, credible science is there, the will is there, and, to some extent, the funding is increasingly there to ensure efficacious new products to fill the gap in the market created by the removal of pesticides. The remaining hurdles are largely around the slow pace of regulation and licencing these products for the marketplace,” he added.

Some of Europe’s largest growers are already reaping the benefits of using non-toxic alternatives to chemical pesticides. In Spain’s notorious ‘Sea of Plastic’, the 30,000 hectare corner of Almeria which produces most of the fruits and vegetables that are consumed throughout Europe, sachets of miniscule mites are used, which are draped from pepper, tomato and courgette plants, and attack the parasites that threaten these crops. In fact, the use of insecticides in Almeria has, according to local authorities, dropped by 40 percent since 2007.

Dr Ansari says: “The biopesticide movement has experienced a very interesting development arc over the past few decades. Our use of insecticides surged in the 1960s, at a time when, at least in the Western World, there was a public awakening to the fact that our chemical-laden environment was perhaps hostile to health and life.

“However, global population pressures have driven producers to increase their output and to find ever more efficient ways of meeting demand. Insecticides have done much to help meet those needs. But, they have done so at great cost to human health, to the environment and to the long-term viability of our soil. Growers are also having to meet the man-made challenge of crop resistance to those chemicals we have been using so liberally for years.”

Firms like Bionema, Ecolibrium Biologicals, Maxstim, Aphea.Bio and many others, often working in collaboration with researchers at key universities, represent a growing number of experts who are spearheading change.

“There is still work to be done to educate farmers, many of whom are in a holding pattern of disinfecting their land with fungicides, and using other chemical agents, simply because this is what they have always done, and because these chemicals are being recommended and sold to them by companies they have dealt with over many years and which they trust.

“However, the biopesticide market is expected to grow from $3 billion dollars in 2016 to almost $10 billion dollars by 2025. Around 30% of plant protection tools now available are biological, and more than 50% of new regulatory applications are biological products.

“But the regulatory barriers are complex, and they are consistent challenges. They require the efficacy of a biopesticide to be quantified and proved, they require the biopesticide to pose minimal or zero risk, toxicological and eco-toxicological evaluations, and other stringent tests. These tests have been put in place for chemical pesticides, but they are perhaps not appropriate for biopesticides. Meeting the current requirements can be prohibitively expensive for biopesticide developers, many of which are SMEs.”