Field Science
28 SportsTurf | February 2015 www.sportsturfonline.com
W
e have recently switched to
synthetic turf here at the
University of Michigan
baseball and softball facili-
ties.
With the new surface there are
some new problems that, as a natural
grass groundskeeper, I was not used to.
Keeping the turf fluffed, keeping infill
around first base after lead offs by play-
ers and holes in batter's and catcher's
boxes. We now rent out the fields more
than ever and have switched from letting
players use metal spikes to only turf or
sneakers to help with the hole and infill
displacement.
But the hardest area to take care of
is the pitcher's mound. Along with the
switch in surfaces, we have cut our staff in
half to try to keep labor costs down; but
having 155 games in 20 days, for example,
resulted in some unforeseen problems.
With no time in between games to get
everything done there was not time to
sweep clay out of the synthetic turf. Big
clay chunks were picked up and the
mound was patched. But with weather
and game schedules, it was not like the
baseball season, when we had time to
remove the clay build-up after the games.
A good solution to
A serious problem
■ By Jason Demink, CsFm
The turf discolor was hurting in recruiting and was becoming unsafe to play on.
