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/726375
20 SportsTurf | October 2016 www.sportsturfonline.com FIELD SCIENCE ■ BY DR. JOEY YOUNG W ater is a precious resource around the world but when you live in a semiarid environment, water becomes a bit more precious. From residential landscapes to our athletic fields, it can be a challenge to manage turf under these environmental conditions. Many of our athletic fields in the West Texas region are artificial, and I believe one of the reasons may be the challenge of trying to provide safe and aesthetically pleasing fields during the season. With these challenges in mind, we have been establishing a number of research studies to evaluate newer bermudagrass cultivars for sports field use in this transition zone environment and develop techniques that can be used to save water and maintain acceptable turf quality. A previous study nearing completion at Texas Tech evaluated numerous residential water conserving products applied to TifSport hybrid bermudagrass managed at 0.5 inch mowing height with and without core aerification. This study was designed to be a worst-case scenario by all means because after the initial product applications were made in mid-June, the irrigation was turned off completely until follow-up applications of some products needed to be made. The study area received reasonable rainfall the first month of the trial through the first week of July; however, no more rain came until the middle of September. Under this significant water deficit stress situation, one of the products that successfully extended green cover compared to untreated control treatments was AquaSmart polymer-coated sand. In contrast to our hypothesis, data collected last year indicated that aerification before application of AquaSmart did not alter the effectiveness of the application. However, applying AquaSmart at a 4:1 ratio (sand:AquaSmart) provided significantly better color and green cover compared to untreated control treatments for 4-5 weeks with no irrigation or rainfall. Some of the biggest benefits to this application for a sports field manager are the extended life of the product in the soil and the potential to apply a mixture of polymer-coated sand in your typical topdressing practices. A single application of mix was applied in mid-June last year and incorporated into the canopy using brooms for our small plot work. The abrasive actions of getting the sand into the canopy resulted in poor visual turf quality, color, and green cover for 1-2 weeks after application, but darker green color was evident following recovery in 2-3 weeks after application. No other applications were made throughout the year, but the significance of drought stress with EVALUATION OF POLYMER-COATED SANDS TO CONSERVE WATER no irrigation or rain in July and August resulted in a sharp decline in turf quality, color, and green cover that remained statistically similar to untreated control treatments for the remainder of the study. Following the first year of data collection, we believe the polymer-coated sands residing around the crown of the plant (aerified or non-aerified) provided greater hydration to the growing point helping maintain color for a longer period than untreated control treatments. Ultimately, soil moisture levels at 1.5 and 3-inch depths were never significantly different with any of our treatments, meaning something other than available soil moisture had to be providing the visual benefits observed. We are conducting this same research again this year and look to publish results from the study early next year. OTHER STUDIES The success and preliminary conclusions of this first research trial led to other ideas we wanted to evaluate. As previously mentioned, there are numerous artificial athletic fields throughout the Panhandle of Texas. I believe one of the reasons for this is the challenge associated with growing bermudagrasses in this short-seasoned transition zone area. The cold and frost can come early and also surprise us with a late freeze well into the spring season resulting in a meager growing season. Bermudagrass needs and prefers a long growing period before resting during the winter months, so we wanted to try and establish some of the newest bermudagrass cultivars that have been demonstrated to be effective sports turf selections in other transition zone areas within the US. We recently obtained and are establishing five bermudagrass cultivars: Tifway 419, Celebration, Riviera (seeded), NorthBridge, and Latitude 36. We will also be establishing the University of Georgia's newest release, TifTuf, next spring in the area. In addition to evaluating these grasses post-establishment, we were awarded funding from Texas A&M to evaluate the use of AquaSmart as a potential method to reduce irrigation requirements to establish sprigs or seeded bermudagrass. We established the grasses under three irrigation zones to provide different levels of water. Control irrigation runs for 15 minutes two times per day 7 days per week; moderate irrigation runs 20 minutes one time per day 6 days per week, and the lowest irrigation runs for 15 minutes 4 days per week. After placing sprigs and seed of the various