SportsTurf

May 2016

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.

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IRRIGATION & DRAINAGE 12 SportsTurf | May 2016 www.sportsturfonline.com FIELD SCIENCE Five-day old HGT variety of Kentucky bluegrass BY BRIAN WINKA, CSFM GROWING GRASS IN THE #NOTRANSITION ZONE: NEW IDEAS F or years, those of us who are fortunate or unfortunate to work in the transition zone, we have dealt with the issues that come with this transitional area. We are fortunate because we can grow both warm and cool season turf grasses, but unfortunately neither one grows exceptionally well. Sports turf managers in the transition zone deal with extreme weather conditions on both ends of the spectrum. In 2013-15 we were hit especially hard with an extremely cold winter followed by a very mild summer. For those of us trying to keep bermuda fields alive in these conditions, it was one of the worst scenarios possible. If you are managing high-use fields this can be a gamble each season. So what can we do to help protect our investment? For many of us in the transition zone this means we are overseeding in the fall, which happens to be the busiest time of year for use on our fields. We are attempting to get newly seeded grasses established in the middle of football, lacrosse and soccer seasons. If you work at a Parks and Recreation facility like I do, then there are no road games and there is play on the fields every day from either practices or games. Seed usually germinates The Chesterfield Valley Athletic Complex has nine soccer fields. We went from a little over 2000 hours of use in 2010-11 to close to 9000 hours of use in 2014. Fraze mow, topdress and seed.

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