Our club is in a drought area with a hosepipe ban, what can we do to minimise the impact of the hose pipe ban?

When a hose pipe ban is in place and the available water is limited to the occasional rain it is very important to:

1.    Limit the stress on the grass by:

• Limiting any unnecessary wear on the pitch. This may mean closing some pitches.
• Avoid applications of fertiliser and pesticide which could scorch or stress the grass
• Limit the use of machinery to essential turf maintenance
• Increase your mowing height – this helps to reduce water consumption and encourages deeper routing by the grass.
• Reduce your mowing frequency – this helps to reduce stress on the grass and helps to reduce compaction.
• Return grass clippings (i.e. do not collect clippings) where possible – this returns both nutrients and water to the turf and also provides a bit of mulch to reduce soil evaporation.
  

2.    Be prepared to make sacrifices:

• Cricket outfields will brown; however they will recover when rain falls, so focus on the square. Advise and educate players on diving and stopping on hard ground where the risk of impact injuries and abrasions will increase due to the hard ground conditions.
• Delay renovation work to the autumn / winter when rain is more likely (but not guaranteed)
• With contact sports, if the ground gets too hard it may be necessary to postpone or cancel games. You should set up a procedure for regularly reviewing pitches to ensure that they are safe to play. The procedure should be similar to how you review playing conditions in the winter to ensure that pitches are safe to play on and that no significant damage will occur to the playing surface.
  
  

3.    Make the most of any rainfall that does occur:

• Try to encourage as much of the rain that falls to infiltrate the playing surface –but avoid aeration which can speed up the drying of the soil which make the conditions worse for the grass to survive and revive.
• After it has rained take the opportunity to carry out water sensitive operations such as rolling in cricket. Think carefully about which pitches can be rolled
• If rain falls on areas that have been seeded you should consider using germination sheets to help the germination get the new grass established.
• Capture rainfall off roof surfaces by installing water butts on down pipes (make sure that they are installed with diverters for when the water butt is full). This captured water is very valuable for watering small renovation areas.