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/73468
FieldScience | ByMichael Shelley and Tom Serensits Is tall fescue right for your field? grass, but we've seen it get clumpy after being exposed to traffic. The other question is how long does it take before it becomes more traffic tolerant than perennial ryegrass? Are the few sum- mer months of establishment long enough? We conducted a 2-year research project at Penn State to try S HOULD YOU CONSIDER OVERSEEDING TURF-TYPE TALL FESCUE (TTTF) on high school fields during the slower play summer months? We know it can handle heat and drought better than Kentucky bluegrass or perennial rye- to answer some of these questions. On sports fields, tall fescue has been traditionally thought of as an aesthetically and sometimes functionally inferior turf- grass species compared to perennial ryegrass and Kentucky bluegrass. However, advances in breeding have resulted in new TTTF cultivars with improved characteristics compared to older cultivars. TTTF cultivars have a medium leaf texture (similar to perennial ryegrass), dense canopy, and dark green color. These aesthetic improvements have allowed TTTF to gain popularity in the lawn industry, especially in and around the transition zone. TTTF provides home owners a lawn that is typically both visually pleasing and functionally superior to other cool-season species in hotter and drier regions of the country. So why hasn't this "buzz" been as popular in the sports turf industry? Especially when high-use, low-budget athletic fields could benefit from a turfgrass that requires less irrigation, fertilizer, and other inputs? One of the main concerns about TTTF is its unknown traf- fic tolerance shortly after seeding. Although tall fescue has been touted as being traffic tolerant, this traffic tolerance has been observed in turfgrass stands that have been established for at least 1 year. Most practitioners suggest field use should be delayed 6-12 months after seeding. In most high school athletic scenarios, fields are used continuously during the spring and fall. Major renovations must take place when fields are in the lowest demand: between the late spring and end of summer. This limited time frame has made seeding with perennial ryegrass a logical choice. Perennial ryegrass germi- nates in 5-7 days and can provide a playable athletic field 2 months after seeding. How does TTTF compare when estab- lished during a similar period? TRAFFIC-TOLERANT ALTERNATIVE? At Penn State's Center for Sports Surface Research (ssrc.psu.edu), we wanted to evaluate if TTTF cultivars could provide a traffic tolerant alternative to summer renovation using perennial ryegrass. Specifically, could TTTF be seeded late in the spring and be ready for play by the beginning of fall? We conducted two experiments. The first evaluated the traffic toler- 8 SportsTurf | July 2012 >> PERCENT GROUND COVER RATINGS for 10- and 14-week establishment periods: TTTF cultivars and perennial ryegrass (Nov. 17, 2010) >> Left: KENTUCKY-31 tall fescue: Coarse-textured, light-green leaf blades. >> Right: TTTF: Dense canopy with medium-texture, dark-green leaf blades. >> TTTF: Visual ground cover. 14-week establishment period (left) resulted in higher ground cover than 10-week establishment (right) (Nov. 17, 2010) www.sportsturfonline.com