Qui tacet, consentire videtur

So... its a little damp in this part of the UK, around 250mm give or take a few inches in the last 6 weeks.. HELL we have about 650mm A YEAR here in the SE, the only place thats drier is East Anglia and they have an average of 500mm in places so half way there then if they have had similar!
Even Rats are taking precautions its seems....

Grass areas are getting moist from general poorly draining areas right through to managed surfaces especially those that have beaten to within an inch of their lives in the last couple of months, smashed, bashed, loosened and filled with nice porous sand or amendments or just nice little holes to fill up quickly with water each time it rains.... All in the name of Thatch or OM reduction as this.... THIS... IS the evil of all turf evils..... Is it?.... Really? .... Is it worth the grief, stress, hassle, sleepless nights of a lot of guys out there at the moment with surfaces that you literally slosh over as they have almost destructured with the wet blow?

Now decompaction is another story, we MUST make sure that surfaces are loosened to combat the stresses we put on it but lets face it are we? .. Are we ACTUALLY making a difference or by reacting rather than preventing are we actually making things WORSE without realising it?

Have we got the timings completely wrong?

Do we do 'blanket' aeration when we should totally differentiate between carpeted/intense draining surfaces with 'normal' soils and 'normal'  

Should we as an industry just stop for a minute and review what we are doing ... when... how big..... and to what depth.

Well lets look at the Armoury now available shall we..

We have nice pedestrian Aerators like the the Procore (DISCLAIMER: Green ones, Yellow and Black ones and Orange ones also available)

 The good old 'Vertidrain@ (Also variants in many colours) with which you can pencil tine, micro tine, jumbo tine HELL you can even bash a cross in the ground if you want...

 To the old Groundbreaker or Earthquake, slotting away

And remember the old Shattermaster.. Now there was a bloody good machine that went out of vogue just because people didn't understand it...

We got Gradens, Sand Fillers, Vibrosandmasters, Gravel Banders, Drill & Fills and Dryjets... Which are actually wet.. never quite got that one?

We had the Robin Dagger... Now added a pic for those that don't know this machine.. a Stalwart... brilliant while running but shite when broken or running crap (often) can't be many of these left about now..

 We got the GP Air which also has as many Probe issues as the belts on the Dagger

 And now we have............. The R2D2

 All the rave apparently....... Hmmmm Ok lets see shall we...

See I been doing Air for a good few years, was the 2nd person to buy a Gwazae, one of the cleverest and also equally SHITE! bits of kit to come out of New Zealand.. as brilliant as it is it costs an absolute fortune to run as bits keep breaking... annoying things like sensors or valves or discontinued shite Italian compressors...

But she works from 450mm down to just over 700mm and similarly where Terrain Aeration work down at 1000mm down there where it's not really about decompaction or aeration it is actually ALL about structure.. and fissures, cracks, channels....... Structure is key to what happens above I am still convinced........ do what you like upstairs but if it ain't got nowhere to go....?

BUT you can still overdo structure, I have overblown, made stuff destabilise, done too much too soon... This worries me with what is happening atop.... Are we doing TOO much? or is it just that we are reacting too late?...

Okay... Cutting to the chase........... lets just think at all the tech, all the kit, the methods.......

WHY ARE GREENS AND SURFACES STILL SHITE WET?

WHY IS SOIL AT AROUND 200-300mm DENSE, DEAD AND FIRM EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE BEEN 'DECOMPACTED'

25 years I am in this year and I am STILL seeing the same problems DESPITE what we have to hand and all the 'science' so ......... What do we have wrong or what are we not doing right? 

Something ain't right and I think its in part down to TIMING.. 

And it looks like a few of you I know well enough to talk candidly about this to may be coming round to the same conclusion cos I know people who are now NOT doing things at certain times and their Greens are , at this moment in time, fairing a damned sight better than those that are doing 'What we are told' and certainly better than they were this time last year in similar circumstances...

A change of mindset is needed, we need to look at water and air differently because how we are looking at it til now just isn't working for too many.

Have we got it ALL wrong?

......... For some maybe I think.

CLARIFICATION POINT: I am not saying we should stop aerating, I am saying that we should start considering the implications of when we aerate, to what depths and sizes and when we just 'vent' a little.

NEXT... Moisture Meters

Right...... I am a geek really, I love tech, I love toys, I love quirky things to make stuff make sense..........

So as part of looking at all this and especially above I wanted a Moisture Meter so I could 'map' soils and highlight where water was sitting in profiles... So i did lots of research, a good few discussions with people on the sensible choices for a professional, got me prices and shuddered a little, wouldn't get one of those on expenses.....

Anyway here is a little Summary of what I looked at and discovered along the way.....

Yes you can look at a 'building or Chinese' Moisture meter that will 'allegedly' do soils but you need something that is 'calibrated' to soil solution to be even remotely accurate so I won't mention this type as, as far as I know, they no good..

  
We then look to the 'Budget, Cheap and Cheerful' so basically the Single Probe type and these sit in the £60-200 Price Range such as Lutron Professional Soil Moisture Meter - PMS-714 to the one I have an Extech MO750 Soil Moisture Meter..

Ok.. it is all I could afford! Self funding here people alright!..........

Next up cost wise came the Delta-T SM150, from the look of it a really good level probe with a basic reading unit no memory function but only circa £350. Sooo nearly bought one..

Then you getting into the £500-900 range, the Delta-T SM300, TDR 100 and 300 all with memories and hand held loggers/facility to log.

 

I have tried to get recent accurate prices on the TDR but the guy who deals with them in UK must have the hump with me as he won't answer... Oh well never mind..........

Now we getting up into the top levels but we going above the £1k mark, well over my budget EVEN if I had one...
If you want to start to log Temp and EC then Delta-T have the WET-2 kit at around £1,250.00 from memory...

Whatever you do DO NOT break the sensor!

Now for the real deal........

And if you 'must have wireless' then Pogo's your kit BUT at a price over £1,500.00 and possibly LESS accuracy then I question worth although I did covert a Pogo really having had a good long chat with the guy last year at BTME.

I am sure there are others out there just I can not find any credible info or feedback on any....

Right.... Couple of CRITICAL points to note with ALL Moisture Meters. Now this is based on my 'feeling' from having a 'budget' Probe rather than a glossy one but all the same they work on the same principle but I just could not help but not TRUST it. 

My pH Meter and EC Meters are different, I calibrate them with Standards so I know when it says X its based on it being set right.
Moisture Meters can not be simply calibrated per sa.

You see in simple terms they send a little electrical signal between points and it's time of this that then defines the moisture level as soil moisture will affect the current.
However.... 3 things (beyond water content) will affect this.. Soil Temperatures, this will affect the way current travels due to influence on soil solution and 'contents' such as seen with EC, again it is the ions and salts that allow a current to flow through water solution, differing levels WILL influence... 

Now for the big one that NO ONE mentions... Varying levels of metals in soils, especially conductors like Copper OR.. things like my old friend Fe...  These WILL affect the current throwing readings.
SO... taking above into account for someone who is regularly monitoring and recording long term moisture patterns at set points on limited but regular locations then fill your boots, a brilliant tool to monitor change and help you manage surfaces.
Just don't take a recording just after you have fertilised!
For me at multiple sites and random timings they are a bit of a chocolate fireguard really.. Yes it will hint at what is happening but my eyes and hands can hint just as well so for now its sticking to the microwave for me to look at moisture for now. Too many variables to be accurate.

So, basically MORE distractions, I have done a load of depth readings with my probe on numerous sites and I might as well have made the numbers all up as changes in EC or other element content at differing depths would have affected the readings as much as moisture itself.....

 Oh well... not like I have other things to do eh...

So unless someone wants to convince me that the above is flawed thinking and allowing me to demo any of the above that will be scientifically sound to record moisture variation with depth I shall continue as I am doing below.........

Taking samples and splitting to depths

Still use and record Moisture Meter alongside to see variation

But rely on good old fashioned weigh and nuke for ACTUAL content.

So for now this Gadget Freak will have to wait till his Clegg Hammer is mended for his Geek Fix.......