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: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/107950
Irrigation&Drainage Employing conditioners a must for infields without water access What advice can you offer to turf managers who have no access, or very limited access, to water but are tasked with keeping infield skins playable? MANAGING MOISTURE MOST IMPORTANT For anyone maintaining infield skins with little or no access to water, managing what moisture is available from Mother Nature is the big key, says Turface Athletics brand manager Jeff Langner. At the parks and rec level and for many K-12 schools, basic soil science knowledge is where every turf manager needs to start. "Knowing how much sand, silt and clay is in your infield enables you to better understand how moisture will affect it," he says. "An infield with high sand content will drain well, but may be too loose if you can't keep water on it. A field with high clay content can get slimy when it rains, and then becomes hard and cracked when it dries out later in the summer months. Managing moisture correctly throughout the season is the way to keep the field safe and playable." Langner adds that using calcined clay 36 SportsTurf | February 2013 conditioners is a must for skins that don't receive regular irrigation. "Conditioners are a moisture management tool for infield skins; they manage excess water by increasing absorption levels, and their ability to hold water and release it over time provides the soughtafter balance," he says. "Turface is an ideal conditioner that has high porosity and adds water-holding capacity." He recommends that calcined clay be incorporated into the top 4 inches of your infield mix, if resources allow, but at the very least should be used as a topdressing to provide a buffer between players' cleats and the infield clay. Using calcined clay is especially important in the mid to late summer months, Langner says, when infields really begin to dry out. "If you can't add moisture daily the clay will get hard. Turface will relieve compaction, and when Mother Nature does provide moisture, the conditioner will work like a sponge, holding onto the water and then releasing it over time, prolonging the time before the skin starts to crack." Langner says not all conditioners are created equally and that water-holding capacity should be more important than appearance when making buying decisions. "Moisture management is why you use these products," he says. "If you cut conditioners out of your budget you're doing a disservice to your infield skin and might not save money anyway, since your labor other costs will go up trying to get the field playable." STRIVE FOR CONSISTENCY As we all know, water is the key to making any field safe or playable. When fields are being constructed, one of the first things discussed is will the field be irrigated or not? If it is being irrigated, location of quick couplers is very important to allow for optimal watering of the skinned infield. If the field is not irrigated (typically found on older, existing fields), then the job for the turf manager just became harder and he/she has to be more creative in ways to create a safe/playable skinned infield. Some things to keep in mind for the fields that are in the no access/limited access to water are the products that are purchased for the infield skinned. With the right products, the situation presented above can minimized with these selections. We recommend the following: • Proper Infield Mix. You want to find an www.sportsturfonline.com