Northumberland FA are delighted to launch a partnership with sports turf products supplier Agrigem.

 The link up will see the County’s FA Charter Standard clubs who are part of the FA’s Pitch Improvement Programme receive a 10% discount on Agrigem’s range of weed and moss control, fertilisers and grass seed and equipment.

The Agrigem team can offer experts advice on technical, practical, legal & environmental issues around the use of pesticides & associated products.

As well as discounts and offers, we’ll be working with Agrigem to offer seasonal advice for our clubs on keeping grass pitches in optimum condition with features on our social media and website.

 To take advantage of this offer or discuss how Agrigem can support the development of your grass pitches, please contact Martin Ford at martin.ford@agrigem.co.uk

And read Agrigem’s latest blog post below on getting your pitches bouncing back from Winter!

MARCH

SPRING IS HERE AT LAST

As the plant has been dormant for such a long period over the Winter and with spring just around the corner with soil temperatures starting to rise, at this point it would be a great time to apply a Spring fertiliser to get some energy and nutrition back in the plant to encourage so some growth/recovery ready for play.

Using a spring feed will wake up the plant e.g., 9-7-7 or 10-4-4CaMgFe, to replenish all the lost nutrition that was lost that a plant needs to survive and to take all levels of sport, without excessive growth but allows your sports field to be strong, healthy, and full of vigour to withstand the hours of use.

It is always important to know what your bag of fertiliser and what their main purposes are, as there are many different analyses available with different NPK values and Nitrogen sources.

(N) – Nitrogen, (P) – Phosphorus and (K) – Potassium, these three elements are essential to a plants nutrition which helps sustain and encourages healthy growth.

Nitrogen – Nitrogen is especially important for top growth recovery and encourages lush green surfaces and healthy leaf growth for density.

Phosphorus – Phosphorus is for plant energy and promotes growth while building a strong root system.

Potassium – Potassium is used for strengthening your plants defences to make the stronger to withstand the stress of heat, drought, cold, pest and diseases.

If you have any seed in the shed, it be great to get it into your sparse areas and better still too lightly top dress over the top to bed in the seed to hold onto moisture to help quicker germination.

With regular cutting of your playing areas a couple times a week if possible, this will encourage your sward to recover and improve density.