Turning up the heat and managing nature.

Part of the last few weeks have been spent trying to fine tune the 5 under soil heating systems that will allow teams to train on the pitches all winter long. This is a unique selling point for us within the business plan. By the time we get to December this year I fully expect teams visiting the area to play against Midlands based teams to do their pre match prep with us.

Between the 5 pitches we have a total of 130 kilometres of pipes carrying warm water heated by 5 gas oil fuelled boilers. I have visited many training grounds with at least one or two pitches equipped with under soil heating to facilitate all year round training but 5 systems on one centre is something else.

Because the pitches have never been fully utilised the systems have never had to really work simultaneously. Under soil heating is like a spade or shovel it’s another tool of the job and if used correctly will do a job for you. However if abused then they can cause problems in other areas.

Keeping the soil temperature steady without baking it for me is the secret. I have seen systems in the past where the steam is literally rising off the pitch. We have several sensors in the pitches that trigger the burners when the air temperatures drop to 4oC. At stage 1 the systems will then lift the soil temperature to around 17oC. For the most time I will be comfortable with this because I have seen horrendous damage caused to root zones that have had too much heat fired into them. I believe by maintaining a steady heat we should be able to beat the majority of the frost that will come our way. Of course there are going to be days when the weather is worse and we will have to lift the soil temperature.

In recent years one of the biggest problems turf managers of sand based pitches have faced has been infestation of Nematodes. These parasites seem to thrive in sand dominated conditions and like it even more when the root zone is warm and moist. The conditions we are creating in the pitches are almost the ideal environment for Nematodes so the heat is being turned up even more as we have to come up with a Management programme to ensure we do not suffer from an attack which could cost us our pitches. In the early days of under soli heating groundsmen could not understand the need to water the pitches in middle of a frost spell when the heating was running. Nowadays we know that the sand fraction in the root zone needs to be kept moist to stabilise it ahead of play. Like other areas of the project we have some really good people helping us with the management programme. Simon Barnaby and Dr.Kate Entwhistle are guiding us in the Nematode management programme. Kate is one of the top people in the industry on Nematodes and the key to having any chance in keeping the populations in check is using the correct products to help keep the right balance.  Some seaweed based products will be key in this area and it’s another example of using natural products to keep nature in balance.