FieldScience | ByJamie Mehringer
>> TURF in late August 2012.
football field would be converted to Patriot bermudagrass.
The other major decision would be to seed or sprig. The primary benefit of seeding is cost effective- ness. Most assume that a sprigged field will have 100% cover quicker than does seeding. As such, De- Pauw opted for the safer bet of sprigging.
June and ready for play by August 1, 2011. On-time, on-budget and better rooted to handle the rigors of 300-pound linemen than its pre- vious cool season version had ever been, the practice football field was a success. In fact, DePauw's women's field hockey coach opted to vacate her varsity field using in- stead the football practice field for not only her team's practices but also its games. In the ultimate testament in
The field was sprigged in early
Bermudagrass in 70 days AT DePauw University
Division III institution sits at the northern edge of the tran- sition zone. Its location makes the school's choice to switch from cool-season turf on its soccer field to bermudagrass all the more notable, although part of what is becoming a trend in and around the Midwest. The 2011 project started a year and a half before when Assistant Director of Facilities and Grounds, Rob Harper, and I drove an hour west to Terre Haute, IN to step foot on the Patriot bermudagrass (cynodon dactylon) football fields of the Fightin' Engineers of Rose Hulman Institute of Technol- ogy in the fall of 2010. The trip was a fact-finding mission for Harper to see if bermudagrass was an option for his ath- letic fields in the transition zone.
D
EPAUW UNIVERSITY is the pride of Greencas- tle, IN. Nestled just 3 hours south of a homony- mously similar school in Chicago, the NCAA
34 SportsTurf | November 2012
Harper saw a healthy, strong stand of bermuda on the practice fields in the height of use of the football season. DePauw's practice
support of bermuda fields, De- Pauw's Harper liked the results of the 2011 project so that he decided to go it again this year. Harper said, "The Patriot field was a tremen- dous success in 2011. The field was easier to manage, and provided a far superior surface to the existing bluegrass/ryegrass surfaces." In the spring of 2012, DePauw's varsity soccer fields began renovation to bermudagrass. For this project, coated Riviera bermudagrass from
>> DEPAUW UNIVERSITY practice field, November 2010
www.sportsturfonline.com
