Foreign grass and ‘wetter water' may future-proof Wimbledon

Times

19 hours ago

Drought-tolerant grass could be trialled at Wimbledon to cope with warmer weather, the tournament's head of horticulture has said.
The Championships recorded the hottest opening day ever on Monday as temperatures reached 32.3C, before climbing to 34.2C on Tuesday, only 1C shy of the highest temperature ever recorded at the All England Club.
Neil Stubley, the club's head of horticulture and courts, is responsible for the 50,000 plants decorating the grounds as well as for its 18 courts, which are 100 per cent rye grass cut to 8mm each day.
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He suggested that fewer hydrangeas, some foreign grass seeds and 'wetter water' could be used to combat the longer heatwaves predicted thanks to climate change. 'At the moment, those short bursts [of heat] are quite easily manageable. Whatever comes in the future, who knows? The predictions we are very mindful of and with all the research that we do,' he said.
Stubley referred to a predicted drought in 2012, which led to a lasting change in the types of plants his 20-strong team position around the ground, even though the drought did not happen. 'We actually made a conscious effort that the hydrangeas, and those types of flowers we've used historically here that actually do need a lot of water to survive — if you look at the grounds over the last 10 to 15 years, although they're still in areas, there's a lot less of them.'
He added: 'All the research that we do with our grasses, we're now selecting grasses that are more wear-tolerant, more drought-tolerant grasses that we can use in the UK that have been used elsewhere.'
The club has a partnership with the Sports Turf Research Institute to test various grass types in different climates, including at one of the institute's research facilities in Australia. Stubley added that although sports grounds were exempt from hosepipe bans for the safety of the players, he was always conscious about saving water.
He would not put a figure on how many litres were used to keep the grass courts and plants in pristine condition as it fluctuates depending on rainfall each year, but asked whether the club was affected by rising water bills, he said: 'Absolutely. And again, as part of our research, we are looking at how do we better water conserve. We have a wetting agent programme, which essentially is something that we can spray into the soil. It sounds like a weird term, but it makes water wetter.'
He said the wetting agent reduced the surface tension of water and so helped it to penetrate the soil more easily. 'We can adjust that so that actually a plant root can tap into that water,' he said. 'So when you think the soil is really, really dry, our grasses can still get water that's maybe not available to other plants.'
Each of his 30 championships had brought different weather patterns, Stubley said. Rain today postponed the start of play to 11.45am, delaying Sonay Kartal's match against the Bulgarian Viktoriya Tomova.
The decision to close the roof on Centre Court is made by the referees, who give the order to protect the courts only from rain or when it gets too dark. Stubley said that the temperature and humidity could affect the grass surface and delay playing conditions.
'[On Tuesday night] they put the roof on. It had been a dry day, the court surface is dry, so once it's closed and the air comes on, they can pretty much start straight away because the atmospheric conditions are perfect for the grass,' he said.
'Now, if you had the roof open and it rained and you pulled the cover and there's a bit of moisture on the surface … Then there's a time frame depending on how much moisture is on the surface, how quickly that air conditioning can evaporate that moisture to give you that playing surface.
'Once it's dry and it's ready for play, then there will be some nuances because again, you won't have an airflow in there, so you won't get what you get out in the breeze. The ball would move slightly different. The same with the surface as well. There are very, very small natural characteristic changes that most people wouldn't notice [but] at the elite level you would.'