Surface Progressing Well Ahead Of Three Friendlies
Click below to watch a video of the pitch renovations"We’ve had different growth rates but the grass is thickening up very well now, and we’re close to uniformity across the grass sward," said Dave.
"We had some serious problems to start with, which has been to do with the historic make-up of the soil.
"It lacked any nutrition and was very high in iron, so all the nutrients we’ve introduced were locked up by the iron and unavailable to the grass, so it seemed it was growing under its own steam, for most of June.
"I had a meeting with the chief executive (Matt Williams) about three weeks ago and I showed him the pitch, and I said once it starts to uptake and respond to the fertiliser, it will grow quickly and it’s certainly done that for the last two weeks.
"We have good irrigation and it drains very well so we’re not reliant on Mother Nature, but it’s about us bringing the nutrition and the biology of the pitch together.
"The quality will be good - the pitch should handle the upcoming three games in a week just fine.
"Then we’ve got a two-week break before the League season starts so we can get to do some more remedialwork on it to get it back ready for then.
"August 8 against Millwall is the game I’m building up to.
"The grass is in full growth and therefore recovery should be fairly rapid at the moment, but it’s always work in progress and there’s never a dull moment.
"We’ve known about the three friendlies for a good while, therefore we’ve worked hard on it to be ready for the start this weekend.
"I’m generally very pleased with the progress so far."
And he believes the pitch is ready to handle the three home friendlies at the Greenhous Meadow in the upcoming week.
Shrewsbury Town entered into a two-year agreement with the Shropshire-based company in May and Dave has overseen the work done on the stadium's pitch ahead of the new season.
The Greenhous Meadow pitch is progressing well, according to Maxwell Amenity managing director Dave Saltman.