SportsTurf

December 2016

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.

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30 SportsTurf | December 2016 www.sportsturfonline.com FIELD SCIENCE fine fescue species and their cultivars were not as tolerant as perennial ryegrass. In the golf fairway test maintained at 0.375 inch HOC most colonial and creeping bentgrass species that were most tolerant of wear (50 passes of the grooming brush) were experimental cultivars. Generally, creeping bentgrass entries were superior to colonials in their tolerance to wear. Similarly for the NTEP greens test (0.125 inch HOC), experimental cultivars were superior in their overall tolerance to wear. All of these NTEP wear trials will continue over the next two growing seasons. A new (NTEP) wear trial was also established in the fall of 2016 to assess the wear tolerance of some 114 perennial ryegrass cultivars. These 114 entries will be assessed for their wear tolerance over the next four growing seasons beginning in the spring of 2017. Sponsor: National Turfgrass Evaluation Program. Organic Land Care Practices in Maintaining Sustainability of Athletic Field Turf, by William Dest, PhD and J. Scott Ebdon, PhD. The objective of the study is to examine the long- term effect on turfgrass sustainability, playing quality characteristics and soil quality. An organic land care system (compost tea, corn gluten) for athletic fields is being compared to a conventional (synthetic) maintenance system using Integrated Pest Management. After 4 years of T he University of Massachusetts Turf Program conducts a wide range of research at both the UMass Joseph Troll Turf Research Center as well as at various field sites throughout the Northeast. Our goal is to enhance the functional use of turfgrasses while reducing the environmental impact of turf management practices. Presented below are summaries of selected projects that may be of particular interest to sports turf managers. Wear Trials on Natural Grass Tennis Courts, by J. Scott Ebdon, PhD, Michelle DaCosta, PhD, and William Dest, PhD. Three official size single courts (78 by 27 ft.) were established with each court evaluating the same eight species and cultivars: Rubix Kentucky bluegrass, Keeneland Kentucky bluegrass, Karma perennial ryegrass, Wicked perennial ryegrass, Puritan colonial bentgrass, 007 creeping bentgrass, Villa velvet bentgrass and the Chambers Bay Dunes mix (creeping red and Chewings fescue). The study is maintained at 0.45-inch height of cut (HOC). Net posts and base lines will be installed to allow for natural wear from actual match play as well as simulated wear from machines to be applied beginning in the spring of 2017. Professional maintenance personnel from the Longwood Cricket Club (Director of Grounds Mike Buras and crew) have been assisting in the court design and installation. In addition, surface characteristics such as ball bounce resiliency, ball roll, surface hardness (firmness), physiological and morphological measurements, and water use as evapotranspiration from the different species-cultivar surfaces will also be measured. Sponsor: New England Regional Turfgrass Foundation. Wear Trials in Fine-Leaf Fescue and Bentgrass Golf Turf, by J. Scott Ebdon, PhD. Evaluations were conducted on some 42 entries of fine-leaf fescue as part of the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP) test. Many of the more wear tolerant cultivars were cultivars of hard fescue, followed by Chewings fescue, with creeping red fescue among the least tolerant species-cultivars to wear. Wear was applied using 90 passes with a grooming brush during each season including spring, summer, and fall. Perennial ryegrass checks were also included in the fine fescue test which showed that the all TURF-RELATED RESEARCH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Editor's note: Thanks to Scott Ebdon, PhD, professor, agronomy-turfgrass science, Stockbridge School of Agriculture, University of Massachusetts, for providing this update: Tennis grass courts at UMass-Amherst showing two of three experimental single-courts.

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