On "selling" natural grass surfaces
I was on the STMA task force that recently
completed the Selection Guide on Synthetic
and Natural Surfaces.
It is a very good start for our industry
but by no means should it be the end.
As best I can tell, one of the most promising
routes for us to take as an industry would
be funding as much research as possible
for the development of more wear-tolerant
grasses that can take the winters of the
north.
It is absolutely amazing some of the things
I am seeing with the newer varieties
of bermuda grass that are coming to market
right now. For the first time, I honestly
believe that more northern climates,
such as here in southeastern Pennsylvania,
have a chance of making a bermuda grass
football field work, at least for the high
school and college seasons.
Let's face
it, dormant bermuda has almost a higher
wear tolerance than actively growing
bluegrass in many instances, at least from
a stabilization stand point.
I'm to the
point now where I'm taking a "let's
try it" approach,
because even if it proves to not be
the complete answer, it is a much better
decision at the start than having someone
pull out the grass and install the plastic
without giving some of these "other
options" a
try.
With some of the seedable varieties
now at our disposal, even if you
do loose some of your turf to winterkill,
you can always reseed in May and easily
be ready most years for fall football.
This may not work quite as well for
baseball and mid-summer sports, but for
college and high school football, it
definitely has a shot. Realistically, football
is the sports that putting in the plastic
anyway, not baseball and in most
cases soccer.
Growing quality bluegrass in climates
such as southeastern Pennsylvania and Indiana
(just two places I have lived and worked)
is not the most affordable endeavor. It
can be done, but it is quite expensive
considering the amount of fungicide required
to keep the plant healthy through the
hot and humid summers we experience in
these two areas.
Clearly, warm season grasses
are much less expensive to maintain and
require less attention in order to produce
a quality field. Most importantly, they
take the wear and tear of football much
better than any bluegrass field.
Apparently,
I'm not the only person thinking this
way. It will be very interesting to watch
how the field holds up this football
season at Ross-Ade stadium at Purdue. It
is their plan to replace their Kentucky
Bluegrass field with Patriot bermuda. I
honestly think it stands a very good shot
at working.
It is my understanding that
they are basing most of their decision
to go this direction due to the success
of growing bermuda on the football field
at Virginia Tech. Tech, being located
at a higher elevation, apparently experiences
weather quite similar to West Lafayette,
even though it is in the mountains of
Virginia. Even if it does fail, at least
they tried this last option prior to replacing
Dr. Daniel's PAT system with a carpet,
something which many of us in the sports
turf would find rather troubling.
Let's face it: if turf managers
don't start doing more to promote our preferred
surface (grass), then we will all soon
find ourselves running a vacuum instead
of a mower.
The one thing I do know is
that the synthetic turf companies are
well financed and have very slick sales
staffs and great PR people promoting their
products.
Unfortunately, no one is really
doing a great job of promoting the benefits
of "the
real thing" in
any organized fashion. I can't help
but think that if we as an industry spent
even a fraction of the money the synthetic
folks are spending promoting their product,
we might not see this rush to replace
grass with plastic.
Clearly
we better start doing a better job "selling" grass
to the decision makers of the world than
we presently are. But in order to do that,
we better start coming up with a few more
viable options to choose from than the
status quo such as cold tolerant bermudas.
The new STMA guide will help, but it can't
be the only thing we do as an industry.
— Mike Boekholder,
head groundskeeper, The Phillies, Philadelphia,
PA
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