How Kings Bruton School has disease free sports facilities after 500 years

By Alistair March 23, 2018 05:39 Updated

Thanks to help from Headland Amenity, the 17 hectares of grounds for rugby, tennis and cricket at Kings Bruton School have come through the winter of 2017 disease-free and stronger than ever before. For a relatively small school, it punches well above its weight when it comes to sport and the facilities offered to 350 pupils.

Grounds manager, Adie Davis, and his team of six groundstaff are kept busy looking after the facilities. “I have been familiar with Headland products for a long time and have enjoyed success with their programmes here at the school for a number of years. On our cricket outfields and rugby pitches we’ve been using Multigreen 28-0-0 which delivers results for the full five to six months it promises it will.” Applied in April and then again in September for strength through the autumn / winter, this is complemented on the fine turf areas by C-Complex in various formulations: 4-3-4 used during renovation work; 7-0-7 through the cricket playing season and 5-2-10 as a spring-starter.

On the cricket squares, Adie has found success with the combination of Multigreen Mini and Headland’s 20/20/30 non-pesticidal tank mix. “We apply the Multigreen Mini in early autumn to take us through the winter and then once a month between October and March we supplement this with a spray of the 20/20/30 enhanced plant health mix.” Headland’s industry-leading 20-20-30 mix combines Seamac ProTurf Fe and Liquid Turf Hardener plant protectants and Turfite elicitor that work together to strengthen the plant against disease. The combination of products applied at Kings Bruton delivers enhanced root development, disease resistance and strong colour. “This programme has kept all disease, including Fusarium and Dollar Spot, at bay – which I know groundsmen at other schools are suffering from.”

As the school heads towards its 500-year anniversary celebrations in 2019, Adie is delighted with the success achieved with their current nutritional regime. “I’ve worked closely with Headland’s Alex Hawkes, who is very knowledgeable, for a number of years and it’s thanks to him that we now have a combination of products that are really working. We get a lot of comments from staff, parents and local clubs that they’ve never seen turf quite like ours, our cricket areas in particular, which makes all the hard work worthwhile.”