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/442256
FACILITY & OPERATIONS a good understanding of how long it takes for grass to respond. While it might take 4 days for the wilted plants to show drought stress from the lateral zone break, it will take an additional 14 days for the plant to reverse going into dor- mancy and bounce back. With a missed fertilizer application is another 2-week setback for grass health. Finally with the extra games during playing season, another 2-3 weeks of time are needed for the plant to recover to a desired growth state. These three events impact the time of the desired growing season—18 days represents approximately 10% of the 183-day growing season and reduce the active growing season by as much as 30%. If these same events occur during the precious 72 days of prime grow- ing conditions, the best time to grow grass is reduced by more than 50%. Not being prepared during the prime grow- ing season is the biggest contributor to mediocre fields. When I worked for a local school dis- trict, we would cobble the fields together during the spring, focusing on preparing the fields for games, but do very little cultural practices. Colorado in the spring can be warm and forgiving, but more often than not spring is cold and cruel. The spring sports would end mid-May, at which point my supervisor would pull us off the athletic fields, go on 2 weeks' vacation and generally neglect the grass. Why? His logic was fall sports would start in August, so he had the whole month of July to get the fields ready. So during the high 90 degree temperatures days in July we would aerate and over- seed our cool season Kentucky bluegrass full of hope and prayers, but not much else. This logic was terribly flawed as it didn't take into account the natural process of cool season grasses. We would have been much better off to have had a plan in place to capture the prime time of growing grass. It would have been beneficial to work on the fields in April and May, so the plants would be ready to actively grow and repair the damage from the preceding year. For turf managers, preparing for the prime time is similar to athletes prepar- ing for their big events. Long distance runners often plan each specific run for several months in advance of a big race. The keys to having a successful mainte- nance practices are similar to the runner: have a plan; apply it consistency; trust yourself, have confidence; and after it is over review the result and adjust accord- ingly next time. A good plan a runner would use includes the date the run will take place; the goal run time and even the route. As turf managers in park and rec, our planning process should be no different. We should know when our big events are and when the prime times are for growing grass. Putting your Plan in Place How do you put a plan in place? My visionary leadership professor recom- mended charting goals in some fashion; he had us use a timeline, a sort of a to-do list while forecasting milestones. It can be done any way you like. I have seen people make to-do lists, place motiva- tional phrases on the bathroom mirror (or computer monitor) or keep personal diaries. As the turf manager at Infinity Park my maintenance plan ran from July 1 one year to July 1 the following year. For example, I lobbied for 2 weeks of no activities in May. I lobbied to administration, coaches, athletes, the marketing staff, and my fam- ily. Knowing the stadium would host the National Championship game the first weekend in June and knowing the prime time to grow grass in Colorado, I would accept non-stop games and practices in March and April (often quite damaging to the turf), knowing the prime time growth in May would make up the difference. Coaches typically would ask me in August about my timing of certain cul- tural practices, and I would respond, "I'm not trying to get the field ready for the next game or this fall, I am get- ting the field ready for next June and the National Championships!" The plan worked each year for the 5 years I was turf manager. Yes, I had challenges, unforgiving weather, broken irrigation (recommendation: do not deep tine at a 10-inch depth when the irrigation laterals are installed at a 9-inch depth!) and extra/unforeseen uses on the field. However, during previous the fall, winter and then spring seasons, we fertilized, aerated, overseeded and performed all maintenance processes following a plan to get the field ready for the May prime growth time, and the field always looked and played great for the National Championship in June. Applying the plan with consis- tency throughout the growing season is another challenge. The best tool to achieve consistency is to trust your- self and have confidence in your plan. Dealing with coaches, administration and sales people confidently and trusting the plan will increase your chances of being successful during the prime time. For example, throughout the year, sales people will visit your fields. Some sales people will call; others will just drop in. Either way, sales people will present you a myriad of tools and products to make your field better. Like a strength and agility coach working with an ath- lete, the strength coach is there to make sure the athlete achieves their physical goals and can help the athlete recover from unforeseen events like sickness or injury faster. With good sales people and turf managers, it should be no different. However some sale people aren't there to help you achieve your goals or recover from unforeseen events. They find the Joshua Bertrand 22 SportsTurf | January 2015 www.sportsturfonline.com