SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/107950
use in our climate. The data continually indicate what great potential the latest generations of cold tolerant vegetative and seeded bermudagrasses have for sports fields. Depending on your perspective (see Dr. Askew's research brief below), bermudagrass is either an outstanding sports turf grass OR it is one of the world's worst weeds. For sports turf, bermudagrass offers transition zone sports field managers the opportunity to take advantage of the exceptional density and aggressive growth rate of this grass. In particular, these grasses have now made their way onto athletic fields throughout the Valley and Ridge region of Virginia at elevations of 2,300 feet or higher. As for any natural grass field, they still must be used and managed appropriately to meet expectations, but with proper traffic management, these fields are providing exceptional playing surfaces even as dormant turfs. The one point of caution I bring to any facility considering a conversion is the intensive mowing requirement of bermudagrass in the summer. However, if this maintenance www.stma.org requirement is properly addressed, the end result is usually a more uniform playing surface and fields that require much less irrigation and pesticide use than comparative cool-season fields. The most recent success story in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley is Wilson Memorial HS where football coach (and VSTMA member) Jeremiah Major seeded Riviera bermudagrass the summer of 2012. Jeremiah and his team delivered an exceptional field by the season opener in August, but even more impressive was the quality of his turf well into the playoffs in late November (Figure 1). The performance and condition of these fields certainly captures the attention of opposing coaches, players, and parents and has led to many fact-finding inquiries about a grass that they previously considered only to be a serious weed. BERMUDAGRASS/WIREGRASS CONTROL–Shawn Askew. Dr. Askew has statewide responsibilities for developing weed management systems in turfgrass. He conducts weed control, herbicide physiology, and weed ecology experiments in all types of turf including athletic fields. His graduate students are currently working on several projects that may impact weed management in athletic fields. In Virginia's climate, bermudagrass is both a desirable turf and a weed. Dr. Askew and his graduate students have worked hard over the past 8 years to develop selective bermudagrass control programs for cool-season turf, especially for Kentucky bluegrass athletic fields. Fenoxaprop + triclopyr programs were developed years ago in North and South Carolina and work great for tall fescue turf. In lower height turf and Kentucky bluegrass, the ester formulation of triclopyr can be extremely injurious to Kentucky bluegrass turf and fenoxaprop is much more injurious to immature turf of any species when compared to mature turf. Both of these phenomena can be problematic for athletic field management where Kentucky bluegrass and lower mowing heights are com- SportsTurf 15