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/391471
32 SportsTurf | October 2014 www.sportsturfonline.com Facility & Operations "We had a late soccer match in November here after the playoffs. We'd have never had time to get the seed to come up," Findley says, "so sodding was the only way to go." Marty Thiel is co-owner of Graff's Turf Farms. He says that the story was similar for the Detroit Tigers when they sodded their field with HGT Bluegrass last March. Thiel says Tiger's head groundskeeper Heather Nabozny, (who was unavailable for comment after having knee surgery for an injury sustained while pulling a tarp during a rain delay), had about a 10-day window in which to re-grass her field at Comerica Park following the Winter Classic hockey event held in the stadium. While the sod for the Cardinals was cut at ¾-inch thick, the sod for the Tigers was cut even thicker, at 1.5-inches, Theil says, "for instant stability." "The Tigers had no time to produce roots before playing time. We had to ship them a ready-to-play surface," Thiel says. "Sod cut at 1.5-inches thick added weight to hold the grass in place, and pro- vided a stronger horizontal root structure to help with stability." Sodding a grass that is also available as seed offered Findley unexpected benefits. In weak areas, or areas needing repair, Findley says the same grass seed can be sown into the existing turf without fear of contaminating a pristine monoculture of grass. "Down the right side of the field, in first base foul territory, there is this half moon shade line problem during the winter months. For 4 ½ months of the year during winter, this area stays shaded and stays pretty frozen until middle of March. The first week of April is the first home stand," Findley says. Because of the shade and cold in that area, the sod struggled to establish roots. To help this one section of turf along, Findley let the turf grow up slightly longer than the rest of the field, aerated a few times, and overseeded the weak spot with more HGT Bluegrass seed. "That's another benefit. You can seed right into it and not worry about any weird consolidation where it will have different patches of color," Findley says. "That's very beneficial." In the areas that got enough sun over the winter and established some roots, "the left side outfield did great. Our left side position spot usually gets beat up, we have a very aggressive left fielder, and it handled it really well. We didn't have to replace left field like we normally we do," Findley says. "I absolutely would recommend HGT. I think it definitely has a place in the sports turf industry. I can't wait to see how it's going to do next year once it's had time to mature." ■ Stacie Zinn Roberts is an award-winning writer and president of What's Your Avocado?, a writing and marketing firm based in Mount Vernon, WA