www.stma.org February 2016 | SportsTurf 17
RESEARCH
I have known Allen Reed for many years. Allen is the direc-
tor of stadium grounds for FC Dallas of Major League
Soccer. Allen first told me about this concept at the STMA
Conference in Daytona Beach in 2012, after he had begun
working with Jerad on the team main training grounds. Allen
was very impressed with this process. When the conference
concluded, he emailed me photos and videos of the process.
When you see this process for the first time, you swear that
you are destroying your field! It is such a "different" process
compared with what we have seen or had been taught in the
US. It took 2 years and several late night "meetings" at STMA
Conferences for Allen to persuade me to try it. It is easier to
try something new when a trusted friend has done it before
you and you respect his work.
SELLING IT TO THE CLUB
After talking with Allen and Jared, as well as several oth-
ers throughout the country that started using the process, I
pitched the practice to the Bengals' front office. The tough-
est part was trying to describe the fraze mowing process to
people with limited turf knowledge. As hard as it was for Allen
and Jerad to get me on board (someone with turf experience)
it was doubly hard to get the club management on board.
During the 2013 training camp, we had one field that expe-
rienced excessive shearing. The players' cleats would shear
the top ½ inch due to a buildup of organic matter and exces-
sive thatch build-up. After the season, I proposed to the club
that we look at fraze mowing to help improve the playability
of the field and to help with the shearing issue. I provided
them with photos and video links and said that this would be
a lot cheaper then sodding the field. I was specifically asked
if this would work, knowing that if it didn't work, I would
be a "former" NFL sports field manager. I told the club that
fraze mowing would eliminate the thatch build-up and the
developing organic matter issue we had on our oldest bermu-
dagrass field and the field would play much better.
IMPLEMENTATION
June 2014 we started the process. We had an area field builder
who was sodding our training camp field fraze mow. Nether
neither he nor I had seen it done in real life; but we kept
adjusting the depth until I felt comfortable that enough mate-
rial was being removed and enough stolons and rhizomes
were remaining (in hind sight we could have removed more
material but I was honestly too scared!). It took about 3 hours
to remove the field. We finished on a Wednesday, and then we
waited…
RESULTS
We came back in on Monday, 4 days after the process, and
there was a haze of green grass growing! We were surprised
to see such a rejuvenation of the plant material in just 4 days.
After 7 days we sprigged the field to insure the field would be
Rhizomes exposed after thatch/organic material removed. All photos courtesy of Jerad Minnick.
