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/34725
within the zone of influence of each individual irrigation head to as- sess any head distribution problems and provide insight into poten- tial causes (Figure 4); and c) assessing head spacing and system performance issues. The software program has been developed as a practical decision-support system to provide information on how uniform is soil VWC status (and all other measured parameters) at these spatial levels and to generate recommend corrective measures or fixes at each spatial level in order to enhance water application ef- ficiency. If an irrigation system is not well-designed, the degree and nature of design flaws are characterized and illustrated. For practical and cost-effective use of multiple-sensor, mobile PTM platform in- formation, decision-support systems software such as described is critical in order for large quantities of data to be processed, ana- lyzed, and presented in a timely manner. On non-sports field sites, the soil moisture-based water audit would be used to assess water-use efficiency and conservation. But, for sport fields, of most importance is the spatial variability in soil moisture as related to the player safety and field playability factors of soil hardness, traction, and shear strength; while still receiving the other water audit benefits. Plant performance can also be as- sessed by spectral reflectance (NDVI) and possibly mobile digital imaging devices in the future. Spatial differences in NDVI can be related to traffic patterns (wear and soil compaction aspects) as well as soil moisture distribution. OTHER PTM APPLICATIONS FOR SPORTS FIELDS In addition to performance testing and soil-based water audit applications, site-specific cultivation and salinity mapping are other applications of PTM applicable to sport fields. Penetration resist- ance data obtained at field capacity can determine areas requiring cultivation. The salinity data on sites with saline irrigation water can be used to determine spatial variability of soil salinity and aid in developing site-specific leaching programs. Surface hardness of infill systems has also been investigated on a preliminary basis. Over time, other measurement devices such as the ones identified in the sidebar will likely be developed that will allow other PTM field ap- plications. Performance testing on sports fields can be significantly ad- vanced by using PTM concepts and technology. Of special impor- tance is to move beyond the practice of sport field “site-assessment” being based on only 4 to 6 sample areas per field and the lack of ex- ploring inter-relationships of soil surface characteristics. ■ Dr. Robert N. Carrow is with the Crop and Soil Science Dept., University of Georgia-Griffin Campus; Dr. Van Cline is Toro’s manager of agronomics and turf. The authors would like to acknowledge The Center for Advanced Turfgrass Technology for research funds and Kathy Rice of the CATT for her expertise in development of the Decision Sup- port System software package. www.stma.org SportsTurf 21