FieldScience |
Joel Simmons
David Wood, head groundskeeper at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
Profile: Stockton College of New Jersey
The Soil W
HAT HAPPENS TO A PRE- MIER SOCCER FIELD that is predominantly annual blue- grass in the middle of a hot
messy summer in southern New Jersey when they turn off the water for two weeks? A rhetor- ical question? Unfortunately no, this is what happened to David Wood, head groundskeeper at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey when the school decided to resurface the track that circles the field. "We were a month and a half away from when the team comes back to start practice for a September 1 opening day game when they started a two week resurfacing of the track that circles our field and I was informed that we could not run our irrigation system at all while the track cures for fear of getting water on the new surface," Wood said about the school lo- cated in Pomona, 15 minutes outside of Atlantic City. Summers in the mid-Atlantic states are not great as anyone managing turf knows, humidity is very high and the temperatures typically can reach into the high 90's.
The soccer field is a mix of many grasses according to Wood, the field is mostly
but
there is a little bit of everything there, some bluegrass, ryegrass, fescue and even some bentgrass.
22 SportsTurf | October 2011 www.sportsturfonline.com
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poa