SportsTurf

May 2011

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 | Update >> FIELD HOCKEY FIELD at University of Iowa gets some water. Photo by Steve Bush, CSFM. cool the surface, but more so to knock the crumb rubber down and give the field a “clean” look as well as to wash off the surface. And then, as a rule of thumb, we spray the synthetic with a microbial disinfec- tant mixed with fabric softener, which also aids in cleaning the sur- face as well as keeping the crumb rubber from pulling back up to the surface. Update on irrigating synthetic turf Editor’s note: We asked several NFL and Football Bowl Subdivision program turf managers about their maintenance routines with regard to irrigation on synthetic turf fields; specifically, Do you irrigate your synthetic infilled field(s)? Why or why not? And, if you do, what’s your normal routine for irrigating on days when there is activity on the field? Here are their responses: DARIAN DAILY, Head Groundskeeper, Paul Brown Stadium, Cincinnati We have tried watering our fields in the past to lower the heat, but have not found the proper method to keep it cool. We do water our field early in the football season. Our goal is to get water down in the rubber/sand to allow the rootzone to “not grab” as much. Our players often comment that after playing in a dome, the indoor field has “too much grab” and they felt sorer than after a game on an outdoor synthetic field. The comments I hear from our players are the wet/damp synthetic fields seem to allow for their shoes to get good trac- tion, but will allow the cleat to release when a great force is ap- plied, thus dissipating a lot of energy and allowing less force into their joints. I have not seen any research to this effect, but if our players say they like a wet field, I try to give them a wet field. Our normal watering schedule for August through October is to irrigate the field Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday before a game. We apply about 1inch of water over those 3 days. We do not water on Saturday or Sunday because the TV people are setting up and I don’t want to hurt or destroy cameras. Once November arrives, we usually get enough rain water to keep the field “wet” and typically don’t have to irrigate the field. SEAN KAUFFMAN, Field and Grounds Supervi- sor, Baltimore Ravens We do irrigate our Sportexe sur- face; we use the Nelson SR Big Guns. Since the majority of our events take place in the spring and fall, we don’t typically irrigate to ABBY MCNEAL, CSFM, Director of Turf Manage- ment, Wake Forest Univer- sity Athletics We irrigate our football stadium field to assist with knocking the rubber particles that are on the sur- face to be dragged back into the field surface as well as to assist with cooling the surface temperature on warm game days. On a game day after the march- ing band has practiced for 2 1/2 hours we will perform a quick drag to “stripe” the field surface, smooth- ing out the displaced rubber from the band feet and then follow with about 5-10 minutes of water to fur- ther “knock in” the rubber particles and give a clean appearance before the teams take the field to warm up. The watering to “cool” the surface is done only as needed and based on current environmental/weather con- ditions at the time. Both of these practices are assessed and preformed IN FEBRUARY Dr. Andy McNitt of Penn State spoke at the Keystone Ath- letic Field Managers Organization’s annual conference. During his pres- entation, McNitt, director of the Center for Sports Surface Research at PSU, touched on the issue of heat and synthetic turf fields. Saying that blacktop is cooler than crumb rubber infilled surfaces, McNitt said it was the fibers of the fields, not the crumb rubber that creates the heat. McNitt said irrigating the surface does cool down fields for about 40 minutes, and then only by about 10 degrees. He noted that that different colored crumb rubber doesn’t make a difference in field temperatures. 32 SportsTurf | May 2011 www.sportsturfonline.com

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