www.stma.org April 2016 | SportsTurf 29
using KaPre ExAlt in those areas helps the new grass seed to
break through the soil.
Walsh employs mechanical compaction relief, too. Each winter
he contacts the front offi ce to reserve a time in the summer
when there won't be a home stand or event, so that he can hire
an outside company to do full core aerifi cation of the fi eld. The
rest of the year, if he has a one or two-day stretch in between
games, or after events, he uses a pull-behind slicer from AerWay
Canal Park, home of the Akron RubberDucks, Double A affiliate for the Cleveland Indians,
Akron, OH.
to break up the soil without damaging the turf.
In Hawaii on the island of O'ahu, Hawaiian Turfgrass is
a company that grows and installs big roll sod for athletic
fi elds and golf courses in the islands. The company also offers
mechanical decompaction services to help their sports fi eld
customers relieve compaction. Sean Fong, president of
Hawaiian Turfgrass, says he and his staff used both the
Verti-Quake slicer and Verti-Drain aerifi cation machines,
manufactured by Redexim Charterhouse, on the baseball
fi eld of Moanalua High School in Honolulu.
"We installed the sod, let it grow in, and used the Verti-Quake
and Verti-Drain to relieve compaction on the entire infi eld,"
Fong says. "We saw great results. No more puddling in the
infi eld and good drainage."
More information about relieving compaction may be on the
horizon. Henry and his team at UGA recently began a 2-year
research project on sports fi eld compaction. "The fi rst trial is
examining spoon aeration timing and frequency over the entire
playing season while the other trial is comparing whole-fi eld
aeration versus site specifi c aeration," Henry says. "Since these
trials are still ongoing, we are still in the process of initial data
analysis and interpretation."
Still, relieving compaction may not always need to be so
high-tech. Walsh and his crew have been known to take push
aerators, even pitch forks and other hand tools out into the
fi eld's compacted areas, to open up the soil. "Anything to
loosen the areas up," Walsh says, "and get some air in there."
Photo of the University of Georgia's site-specific aeration trial. The picture depicts one of the
test plots and the delineation that is created based on the amount of compaction present at
the initiation of the trial. The yellow border is the outer edge of one plot and the red border
within the plot depicts the "most compacted" area. Researchers run a mobile device over the
plot to determine soil compaction with a penetrometer then plug that data into an algorithm
that separates the plot into the upper 25% compacted area and lower 75% compacted
area. This allows researchers to break the plot up into zones and manage them separately
according to aeration frequency.
