Football / Rugby / Cricket Pitches

Agrostis have been providing professional independent agronomic advice to football, rugby and cricket grounds continuously since 1995.  Early research work on golf green construction provided a sound technical background that is now supplemented by a career working with sports facilities throughout the UK and in particular in the south and east of England.  Clients range from Parish and Local Authorities to the highest league grounds.
 
Agronomy services to sports grounds are tailored to each particular circumstance in order to meet your requirements most precisely.  With a comprehensive range of technical evaluation procedures to call upon (see Technical Services) sports pitch advisory work can be as simple or as detailed and substantial as required.  Call to discuss how we can help.

Agronomy Services for Sports Pitches 
Our advisory service is intended to improve your facility in terms of the effectiveness of management, the appearance and the playing quality of your surfaces.  An advisory report follows a detailed site investigation and a discussion with you to establish your overall aims.  The report will cover all aspects of the maintenance and possible development of the facility.  The results of the site assessment and a discussion of their implications are followed by a detailed explanation of the management techniques required to achieve the desired results.  Areas that are usually covered include:
  • Drainage
  • Fertiliser use
  • End of season renovation
  • Top dressing
  • Grass seed selection
  • Aeration procedures
  • Playing quality and playability
  • Mowing and scarification
  • Irrigation
  • Divot repair
  • Weed, pest and disease control
  • Wicket preparation
Being an independent consultancy, we won’t try to sell you anything but we’ll happily point you in the direction of particular products or machinery if we feel they are what would be of greatest benefit to you.
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​Quality Assessment
Sport England have established performance quality standards (PQAs) for all forms of grass pitches. These are described in an excellent document which may be downloaded here (2.5Mb).  The standards relate to measures of sward height, ground cover, hardness, water infiltration rate, surface evenness, slope etc.  We are equipped and experienced in taking all of these measurements and, in reporting to you, we will advise you on what to do if for any reason your pitch falls short on one or more of the measures. 
Tim Lodge at Waikato Stadium

Dr Tim Lodge examines excellent natural turf at Waikato Stadium, Wellington, New Zealand
Better surfaces, better sport by Agrostis

Better surfaces, better sport
Slope, hardness and moisture content measurement by Agrostis

Slope, hardness and moisture content measurement