Contractor commends J Green for hardwearing performance at over 40 sites

For contractors Avon Sportsground Maintenance, when it comes to the overseeding of bowling greens it’s the fine fescue and browntop bent blend of J Green that is sown every time! Delivering hardwearing but slow growing surfaces, the mixture from the Johnsons Sports Seed range is used on all 47 greens in the Bristol and Bath area currently under the remit of Owner Matt Phillips and his team.

There isn’t much that Matt doesn’t know about looking after bowling greens, the company founded by his father in 1980 and Matt joining just four years later at the age of 16. “In contrast to other sports where foot traffic is more evenly distributed, in bowls, players are relatively static meaning we need a sward that will give us good coverage and has tolerance of high wear” he explains. “We’ve been using Johnsons J Green for several years for exactly this reason – it ticks all of the boxes.”

Incorporating top-rated fine fescues and bent grass cultivars, J Green delivers fast sustainable surfaces with excellent disease resistance, summer colour and enhanced shoot density – helping to reduce poa invasion. “The thick, dense coverage also helps us to keep moss at bay which is becoming evermore important with the reduction of chemicals at our disposal.”

Matt continues, “Not only do we want to produce bowling greens that perform to the highest standard, we also have to be thinking of the future and, particularly, how we manage disease and pests. For this, we need cultivars that are more resistant to disease. J Green not only helps us to achieve cleaner and healthier surfaces across all of our sites, we find that any outbreaks are incredibly limited and the resulting scarring is easy to rectify with some targeted overseeing in the spring. Because of this, we have all-but eliminated our use of fungicides.”

With the programme performing year after year, and the clubs extremely pleased with the results, Matt and his local DLF Regional Technical Manager Ian Barnett have – actually very little - to discuss as they look ahead to the next renovation season this September! “We’ve got a great team, a great programme and great seed to match but Ian’s not complacent and will still check-in regularly to make sure everything is all OK. We wouldn’t even consider using anything else” he concludes.