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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FieldScience | Carmen Magro Water’s true impact on your sports turf And what it all means for decision making Editor’s note: Carmen Magro is vice president of agronomy for UgMO Technologies. He has a degree in turfgrass science from Penn State and was superintendent of Bidermann Golf Club, Wilmington, DE from 2000-04 before becoming an instructor in Penn State’s turfgrass program. He later worked for Floratine and Advanced Sensor Technologies. I T HAS BEEN SAID more than once that you cannot manage what you don’t see. Then someone needs to ex- plain to me how we as turf managers have been finding a way to do just that for a long time. But have we really managed to the best of our ability? Having been a golf course superintendent and instructor in turfgrass management for golf and sports turf students alike, I have experienced times when I won- dered if I was making the right decision when it comes to irrigation practices and water movement through my turf system. In my 20th year in this business now, having seen millions of data points col- lected from various soils around the world in real time, I’ve learned what water truly does in the soil and in our turf systems. More importantly, I’ve learned from sports turf managers how a simple assumption and decision on water use can make or break a game, a season or even a career. For the past few years I have served as the VP of Agronomy for UgMO Technologies, a company who specializes in monitoring soil conditions in sports turf, golf, agricul- ture, residential and commercial landscapes and environmental systems. Through multi- ple recorded cycles of water in sandy to clay soil types, dry to humid climates, sunny to shady conditions and every other changing variable that you understand far too well, I’ve learned what water truly does before, during and after an irrigation cycle is initi- ated. For sports turf users, the question as to whether or not we can gain more informa- tion to make better decisions has certainly been answered with a resounding yes when it comes to soil monitoring. Currently, UgMO has recorded millions of data points making it likely the largest real time soil data base in the world as its patented wireless technology allows for sensors to be placed anywhere desired. Take the skin of a baseball field. Using UgMO in its earliest phase, Eric Hansen of the Los Angeles Dodgers learned quickly that turning off the water completely when the team was out of town was not doing him the best justice for maintaining his skin most effectively. He explained to me that, “I learned how the lower profile in the skin be- came so dry during the away stands that it took me much more water (and time) to get the skin to the optimum moisture I wanted for the next home stand. I found it much easier on us to maintain better conditions by maintaining a consistent moisture level throughout the skin at moderate levels even during away stands while the overall water use had no significant change.” I certainly understand the need for opti- mum conditions. Matt Shaffer, superintend- 14 SportsTurf | June 2011 www.sportsturfonline.com By