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/460594
www.stma.org March 2015 | SportsTurf 31 with that idea was the field was not frozen. Remember, we had 2 inches of rain right before the snow started. All that snow was a great blanket that kept the field from freezing. Had we taken a tractor out there we would have had some serious ruts to fix. Our only answer for the outfield was to let it melt. We tried to help it along by spreading crumb rubber by hand on top of the snow. We would have liked to do this with the topdresser but again we were worried about creating ruts. The crumb rubber actually seemed to help; the thought was that the rubber would heat up and help melt the snow. In the areas it was thickest it did melt 3-4 days sooner than areas not as thick. Different story for infielD The infield was a different story. If they could practice on the infield soon that was what they wanted; they would wait on the outfield. We are blessed with great coaches and players that will help do anything to help. The first idea was to melt the snow with water (the tarp was under the snow) and pump off the water. Maybe it will work somewhere at some time but we won't try it again! The next thought from the coach was what if we used shotgun-style heaters and scoop snow in front of them to melt the snow and then pump the water off? It worked but not fast at all; strike 2. The last idea we knew would work but had its perils. Get the shovels! We borrowed two Toro Workmans with dump beds from our golf course and got as many shovels as we could. Our crew of four, all the coaches and players (when not in class!) started scooping into the Workmans and hauling it off the field. Under the tarp it was dry and firm so in the beginning there was no issue with rutting except outside of the playing surface, on the apron, as we pulled on and off. As with measuring snow depth, after a while we quit counting how many loads of snow we took off. In 2 days we had most of the snow off the tarp but had to fight ice forming overnight. We used brooms to push the melting ice off in the afternoon and finally got the tarp up. The biggest problem we had in doing this was that as careful as we wanted to be and stay just above the tarp with every scoop, after a while every scoop dropped lower and put a small tear in the tarp. The dryness went away under the tarp we were driving on and so ruts began to form. As soon as we realized this we car- ried snow to the carts and kept the rut in one spot. We did get our games in March 7, no worse for wear. next time What will we do next time; what did we learn? As far as the out- field I really did feel that the crumb rubber helped although we did not get near enough down. If the field were frozen under the snow I would definitely use the topdresser and try to get a much more uniform coating. For the infield, now that we have an extra tarp (with a lot of small slits in it) we have used it with the gray side up to melt the snow. If the sun is shining you can melt a lot of snow in a day and then move it over to the next area. Using the old tarp has kept us from having to scoop. (An expensive lesson I don't recommend but…). I have since changed positions here at the University and am now the Grounds Manager; the person I hired comes to us from Michigan and already has some great ideas for removing the snow from the field. I will have him do the next article. I don't know if what we did was right or wrong (probably mostly wrong) but it's what we did. In hindsight we might have been ahead of the game to do nothing and let nature take her course. But I doubt there any too many of us that would do noth- ing. Our jobs are to do everything we can to fix a problem, right or wrong. And that's how we learn. ■ ST Brad Mackey is now grounds manager at the University of Central Missouri; he previously was athletic fields coordinator. The University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg is a Division II school and has a student population of more than 14,000. The crumb rubber actually seemed to help; the thought was that the rubber would heat up and help melt the snow.