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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22 SportsTurf | February 2014 www.sportsturfonline.com Zoysia has also been used on baseball fields at the high school level. Richard Mendez was the sports turf manager at South San Antonio High School in San Antonio when the field was renovated in October 2010. The original plan was to grass with bermudagrass but once he saw Zeon Zoysia, Mendez changed his mind. "It blew me away," Mendez says. "The feel of the grass, how when a ground ball is hit it slows the ball down because it is so thick, that was a good thing for our in- fielders, for the ball to slow down." The base paths, infield, and outfield were all grassed with Zeon. Mendez says he noticed a difference in maintenance re- quirements almost immediately. "I cut down my watering by 33%, if not more. This grass just needs less water," Mendez says. "I didn't have to run the sprinklers, especially during the tournament nights, so we didn't have to come to a wet field in the morning. For us it was a big plus, to be game ready a lot sooner for the morning game." He also used less fertilizer on the zoysia than on the field when it was bermudagrass. "We didn't have to fertilize but maybe a pound of nitrogen a year. That cut back our budget quite a bit. Our athletic direc- tor was pretty pleased about that, that we didn't have to buy as much fertilizer as we did with bermudagrass to keep it green," Mendez says. He also no longer had to overseed the field. "Maintenance costs were cut down in the fall and the spring because you didn't have to overseed anymore. The reason to overseed is to keep the body of the grass. Bermudagrass loses the body, zoysia does not. I wanted to paint it but we didn't. My test was that it would need to be green by the time our an- nual tournament came along in the second week of March. We had a green baseball field by then," he says. Mendez says he sees a place for zoysia on sports fields. "I think zoysia is going to be the grass of the future for sports fields because of the low cost of maintenance, especially in high schools, because school budgets are cut. If we can have less maintenance costs we can put that money into education," Mendez says. Coach Donaldo Perez of Somer- set High School in Somerset, TX guided his baseball team to the playoffs that were held at South San Antonio's field grassed with Zeon Zoysia. Perez says that both he and his players noted an improved dif- ference on the zoysiagrass field. "The grass at South San is so tight-knit. The ground balls to our players were so sound, a lot sounder than most fields. They were pure ground balls toward you. The field plays real smooth," Perez says. "The grass makes a difference in how the ball is played. I felt that that field really was a really good field to play on. We had some true hops. There are other fields that you play on that are not the same. This was really player friendly, ground ball friendly." Charles Harris is president of Buy Sod, Inc., a licensed pro- ducer and installer of Zeon Zoysia in Pinehurst, NC and a member of the The Turfgrass Group's Zeon production net- work. Harris says he's grassed two high school baseball/softball fields with Zeon Zoysia in North Carolina so far. "Zeon is very fine-bladed and esthetically, it's a great turf. The ball rolls across it very well. It's very dense," Harris says. Using zoysia on the fields he's installed, he says, has pro- duced "positive feedback. They've been very happy with the result of what we've put in." Harris says the key is for sports turf managers to be aware that mainte- nance requirements on a zoysiagrass field are differ- ent than on a bermuda- grass field. "I think it's just people getting used to growing zoysia. You can't grow it like a bermuda- grass. It doesn't need the same amount of nitrogen feed. It's a little slower growing so the maintenance practices are different. It's a learning curve as they get into it," Harris says. Although zoysia is a very dense turf and can withstand a lot of wear, "once damaged, it doesn't have as quick a recovery as bermudagrass," Harris says. "So the question is, how will it re- cover? What is the threshold for the number of events it can withstand? In many ways, it's better for maintenance and es- Although zoysia is a very dense turf and can withstand a lot of wear, "once damaged, it doesn't have as quick a recovery as bermudagrass," Harris says. Field Science South San Antonio High School's ball field grassed in Zeon Zoysia. Photos courtesy of Richard Mendez.