practicing sprints or anyone else, such activi-ties tend to take place in the same area, andeventually, the field will look worn there.This can be a hard battle because manymanagers have to try to convince coaches,who thrive on routine that they do need tochange up the location of practices.

“Moving repetitive routines around thefield or just making slight adjustments fromtime to time will help keep the isolated dam-age from showing in specific spots,” saysJohn Schedler of Atlas Track & Tennis inTualatin, OR. “Sprint and touch exerciseswith or without cones in the same spot caneventually move the turf by planting andaccelerating again and again. This will showmost on the yard lines.”

GETTING OFF ONTHE WRONG FOOT

Improper footwear is a huge enemy ofartificial turf, adds Schedler, who says thatthe constant shoe/turf interaction can flattenand damage the surface. Surprisingly, flat-

soled tennis shoes can be detrimental to theturf as well. Appropriate athletic footwear(many turf manufacturers recommend ath-letic shoes with rubber cleats) should bemandated.

“Flat soled shoes or street shoes can reallydamage areas on your field,” Schedler says.“Most fields have a fiber that has somememory and after being compressed willwant to go back to its original position. If

www.stma.org SportsTurf 21

>> TO KEEP A FIELD LOOKING ITS BEST, educate users in proper use, footwear and more. Photo cour-tesy of Suburban Consulting Engineers, Mt. Arlington, NJ

22 SportsTurf | December 2010 www.sportsturfonline.com

Facility&Operations

that fiber gets compressed again and again,or even worse, gets constant compression,the memory will start to fade and it will staycompressed. This is the beginning of the endfor most forms of fiber. After an event thathas compressed the fiber for an extendedtime, it is important to groom or brush thatfiber back up as quickly as possible.”

THROWING IT OUT THEREHaving field events on artificial turf can

be great—provided they’re the right events.With the increasing use of synthetic turfcome concerns over whether throwing eventscan cause damage to the athletic surface.The UEFA, the European governing bodyfor soccer, has guidelines on synthetic turfwhich state that shot put and discus do notcause damage, but that hammer and javelincan. Some events, therefore, may need to beshifted around during meets and competi-tions.

“One of the biggest questions I keep run-ning into about turf is the field activities,”says Sam Fisher of Fisher Tracks in Boone,IA. “It seems that some sales people will sayanything to get a job but, in fact, the ownerthen finds that their warranty is invalidatedby conducting such activities.”

According to Fisher, a special tip hasbeen developed for the javelin for use in syn-thetic turf, but he expresses doubts about the

ability of such a product to protect the turfover repeated use. Facility managers areencouraged to protect their new facility, andto not expose it to unnecessary risks.

VANDALISM:Because an artificial turf represents a sub-

stantial investment, keeping it safe should bea priority, says Dan Wright. Field managersshould be as proactive as possible in order tohead off mischief-makers.

“The damage a vandal can cause can besomething simple to repair (usually someadditional brooming) or something veryexpensive requiring a complete replacementof the field,” says Wright. “Security of thefacility is very important in keeping vandal-ism under control. I would recommendsome video surveillance of the facility if thefacility is in an area where vandalism is ahigh risk.”

DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME:According to Norris Legue of Synthetic

Surfaces, Inc. in Scotch Plains, NJ some ofthe worst damage to fields can be inflictedby well-meaning managers, maintenancecrew members and others. An example, headds, would be the person trying to examinea seam which may or may not be comingloose.

“One of the biggest enemies of artificial

turf is what I would call a ‘good-intentionedinvestigator’ (or overly curious user) whosecuriosity exacerbates a small issue and createsa major problem,” says Legue. “In such acase, the investigator might grab the edge ofa loose piece of a turf seam and peel it backenough to cause the bond to fail and create atripping hazard on the field. In the industry,we have terms we call ‘shear strength’ and‘peel strength’ when referring to the adhesiveor bonding of turf at seams. Peel strength islike peeling a banana or orange which ismuch lower in bond strength. Shear strengthis like trying to pull the skin off the orangeor banana from the middle of the fruit with-out an edge to grad onto. Turf seams aresimilar in nature and the bond is designed towithstand normal athletic competition andactivity or force. The bonded seams are notintended to withstand the good intentionedinvestigator attempting to peel them openlike a banana.”

WATER, WATEREVERYWHERE

Turf managers often water fields in orderto keep the playing area cooler; however, inmany cases, says Lance Rosenberger ofMedallion Athletic Products, Inc. inMooresville, NC “watering does not seem tohelp temperatures, it only raises the humidi-ty,” creating an unpleasant playing environ-ment.

In addition, depending upon the surfacetemperature, watering may not immediatelycreate playable conditions, as it may notbring down the temperature quickly enoughto reach a comfortable level. Many who arecaring for a turf field for the first time findthat it takes about a year to understand theambient temperature, its relationship to thefield temperature, and how long a fieldneeds to be watered in order for a comfort-able playing environment to prevail. ■

Mary Helen Sprecher wrote this on behalfof the American Sports Builders Association, anon-profit association helping designers,builders, owners, operators and users under-stand quality construction of many sports facili-ties, including sports fields. www.sports-builders.org.

>> MANY TYPES of users, not just athletes, will use a field. Ascertain that groups including spirit squads(such as cheerleaders, dance teams and baton twirlers), bands and support personnel understand theimportance of proper footwear, and of not using the same areas in the turf on a continuing basis, as thiscan cause damage over time. Photo courtesy of Holcombe Norton Partners, Inc., Birmingham, AL

www.sportsturfonline.com

Facility&Operations | By Max Utsler

KAY, SO YOUDON’T.

I know your type.The studious scientist.

The detail-oriented,Type-A per-sonality. You’re more at homelooking into a microscope thanlooking at a keyboard. You’drather lay an acre of sod thanwrite a report. You find writing anewsletter article something akinto chaperoning five of yourdaughter’s 13-year old friends at aJustin Bieber concert.

I get it. You don’t want towrite a newsletter article. But let’ssuppose your chapter or theSTMA says you need to write anewsletter article, kind of likewhen your spouse said you needto take those teenagers to the con-cert. You just line your pocket

with some Extra Strength Tylenoltablets, grab the earplugs and gasup the minivan. “Justin, here wecome.”

So why not approach thenewsletter assignment with thatsame level of enthusiasm? All youneed to do is come up with agreat story idea, gather the infor-mation and organize it into aninteresting and intelligent story. It sounds so simple, but it’s oh-sohard. But try to skip over thisstep, and it won’t make any dif-ference how effectively you exe-cute the other steps. You can’twrite your way into a good story.It must start with a good storyidea.

You probably won’t get to thatblood sweating stage over one lit-tle newsletter assignment, but you

24 SportsTurf | December 2010

can make sure you don’t go there by always being alert for storyideas and keeping a file of them. To help you get started on storyideas, it will probably be helpful to know the criteria most journal-ists use in determining if an idea is really newsworthy.

SO TELL ME, JUST WHAT IS THE NEWS?First of all, a story idea must qualify on some basic measures of

timeliness, proximity and audience. You must find a NOW elementin the story you propose to tell. If you write about something thatalready happened and that your audience already knows all about,you are writing history—not news.

Proximity is quite easy to understand. Things that happen closerto home are more newsworthy than things that happen farther away.The development of a new mowing technique is more newsworthyif the innovation takes place in the U.S., or better yet, in yourregion, as opposed to the UK.

Finally, you must know your audience. If you are writing forother turf management association members, you can make certainassumptions about their base of knowledge. If you are writing for amore general audience such as the readers of your local newspaper,you must avoid those assumptions about those readers’ understand-ing of your craft.

Once you’ve met the threshold on those three criteria, youshould focus on the key elements of what makes an idea newswor-thy, such as unusualness, prominence, conflict and impact.

The first time something happens we deem it unusual. The lasttime something happens we deem it unusual. Once an event hap-pens with predictable regularity, you can’t sell your idea to an audi-ence on unusualness. So move on to another criterion.

Prominence is a significant element of newsworthiness. Namesmake news. If your are having a grand opening or launching a newprogram, get Sandra Bullock or Peyton Manning to make theannouncement. That would give you something to write about.

Now consider conflict. This is one element you may have grownto hate. Love it and use it to your advantage. Many times conflictstems from battling bureaucracies. Let’s say one state law requiresyou to do X and a federal law requires you to do an incompatible Y.That sounds like a story and one you can do without any hint offinding a villain or pointing a finger of blame.

Mostly let’s look for impact. If you find a story that affects a lotof people in a small way it’s newsworthy. If you find a story thataffects a small number of people in a significant way, that’s alsonewsworthy. If you find a story that affects a large number of peoplein a very significant way, that is the most newsworthy of all. A dropin tax receipts leads to budget cuts which lead to the closing of two

Prominence is a significantelement of newsworthiness.Names make news.

So you want to writea newsletter article…

Ow w w. E w i n g 1 . c o m

SportsTurf 25www.stma.org

parks which leads to cancellation of the entire fall youth soccer sea-son. That would be big news, and it’s big news based on impact.

Watch TV, listen to the radio, read the newspaper and surf theWeb to learn the craft of news judgment. What kinds of storiesinterest you? In short, you must think like your audience to assess thenewsworthiness of an idea.

The traditional standard of journalism demands a story cover the5 W’s and the H—who, what, why, when, where and how. Everystory must include those elements. Often your previous experienceand expertise will give you a head start on the fact base of the story.If the subject matter is an analysis of artificial turf vs. grass and theinjury factor, you’re probably pretty well-versed in the who, what,when and where of that story. Your additional information gatheringwill likely focus on more of the why and the how. That will helpyour story answer one key question, why would anyone want to readthis?

As mentioned, some of the information base of your story cancome from your previous knowledge. But be mindful of the need forattribution. You don’t need attribution to state grass is green, butyou do need to cite the study that shows a particular insecticide isharmful to the environment.

You’re already quite aware of the vast number of Internetresources you can use to gather information. But once again, take theextra step of evaluation that information. First is the info believable;second, it is provable? Does it come from a reliable source, one with-out a vested interest?

To fill in the why and how you will need to interview knowledge-able sources, persons with first-hand information about your topic.Inexperienced writers often skip this step. They substitute their ownopinion for the opinions of others. Unless you have great standingamong the audience members you are writing for, you’re best off tak-ing the time to find experts other than yourself.

If you have done the proper work in gathering the who, what,when, where facts of the story, you should be able to conduct a con-cise and insightful interview. At the risk of oversimplification thatmeans when you’ve found the right source, just ask that person whyand how.

Actually, interviewing does have a more sophisticated set of proto-cols. Colleges offer entire courses in interviewing. But you can followa few simple steps to make sure you cover the right ground.

• Open with a simple statement of who you are, why you are call-ing and the nature of your story. Ask the person if you’ve havehim/her at a good time. Without showing off and without talkingtoo much, you need to demonstrate you know enough about yourtopic that you will be asking good questions, understanding theiranswers and not spending time asking that person to do your basichomework. Friendly but business-like works every time.

• Zero in on the main issue you want to cover. This is where youreally get into the why and how. Avoid questions that can beanswered yes or no. Keep them open-ended so the interviewee canprovide the context. Some good questions that often brings enlight-ened answers are, “What do you make of that?” or “Why do youthink that way?” or “How did you arrive at that conclusion?”

WorldCupWorld Class

TIFSP RTwww.tifsport.com

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TifSport was the grass ofchoice for Moses MabhidaStadium for the 2010World Cup in Durban,South Africa. No wonderit’s also a favorite for pro-fessional, collegiate andhigh school fields righthere in the USA. At Irving,Texas on the DallasCowboys practice fields.At the University ofOklahoma. At UNC andGA Tech. Football, soccer,baseball - any sportplayed on natural grass isa natural for TifSportBermudagrass. If you’relooking for a sports turfthat can handle non-stop

action, a cooler transitionzone climate and heavyoverseeding, TifSport’syour answer. It’s ideal forintramural fields, practicefields and gameday ven-ues, where everything hasto be perfect. Coachesand players love the wayit looks and plays, andyou and your crew willappreciate how easy it isto manage. TifSport canonly be sold as certifiedsod or sprigs and only bylicensed members of theTifSport Growers Assoc.For more information visitus at www.tifsport.com orcall 706 552-4525.

26 SportsTurf | December 2010 www.sportsturfonline.com

Facility&Operations

• If you ever have to ask a pointed, controversial question, this isthe time to do it. If the article is something of a controversial nature,you make have to challenge your source to explain the why and how.Be calm and be nice but be firm.

• If you had to ask your source a difficult question, don’t end onthat note. Ease out of that part of the conversation. Move into moreneutral and non-controversial territory. Maybe follow up on somethingyou covered earlier in the interview and ask for clarification.

• One of the best ways to close an interview is to ask the source ifyou left anything out. “Is there anything else I should know?” A finalquestion might be, “Who else should I be talking to on this story?”The advantage of that question is that it gives you sponsorship whenyou call your next source.

Clearly, interviewing someone in person is the best choice. Think ofit the same way you think of asking someone for a date. You not onlyget to hear what the person says, but can see how the person answersit. Notice, you rarely get turned down if you ask in person.

Don’t go in with a list of prepared questions. Think of an interviewas a conversation. You wouldn’t bring notes to lunch with a friend.Don’t use them in an interview situation. When you’re reading yourlist, you’re not listening, and listening is the key to a good interview.

You gathered the factual base. You interviewed the key sources toget the how and why so now you face a mountain of information andabsolutely no clue in how to organize it. But organizing a story isn’t asdifficult as it may appear. One organizational scheme is called theInverted Pyramid. Organize the story by starting with an opening sen-tence that delivers the most newsworthy elements of your story. (Goback and review the Story Idea section). We call that the lead sentence.Then follow it with information in descending order of importance. Ifyou write a story that is 12 inches in length, and the editor only hasroom for an 11 inch story, you don’t have to worry about the editorcutting off the final inch. It’s the least important part of the story.

A more sophisticated way of writing a story goes by the name theWall Street Journal Method, stemming from a style pioneered by, youguessed it, the Wall Street Journal. You have undoubtedly seen thisform utilized numerous times. Every newspaper, magazine andWebsite uses it, at least on occasion. The WSJ method includes thefollowing elements:

• Start with a descriptive, scene setting lead that focuses on a personmost affected.” No bureaucrats here, just common folk. If the storycenters on “no fall soccer leagues,” start with a description of a loneboy, dribbling his soccer ball in the back yard. Develop the idea thatlast year at this time he was playing on a team in a city parks and recleague and enjoying the competition with the other 10-year olds.

• Have the last line of the anecdotal lead set up a quote, in this case,from the young boy’s Mom. “Larry was so active then and absolutelyloved soccer. Without soccer this year, he seems to have lost interest inschool.”

• The origin of the term nut graf is a hard to nail down. The con-cept is easy. This paragraph should explain two things: why I am writ-ing this story and why now. So the nut graf on our soccer story mightbe, “The other 10-year olds in Riverville are also stuck on the soccersidelines this fall. A shortfall in tax collections led to cuts in the city

budget. The Parks and Recreation Department had already spent mostof its money for the year, so the only thing left to cut was the fallyouth soccer program. The fallout over those cuts has been great.”

• Use the nut graf as your outline for the rest of the story. In oursoccer story, we would first explain the tax shortfall, then the budgetcuts, then the dropping of the soccer program and finally, the falloutfrom that. In short, if you nail the nut graf, the story practically writesitself after that.

“On the other hand”—you may need to include a paragraph or twoabout the other side of the story. Perhaps the elimination of the cityprogram has led to schools to look at starting soccer programs.

If you use the WSJ method of story organization, you are commit-ting yourself to being a storyteller. And every good story must have anending. Often that ending can evolve from your anecdotal lead.Maybe we go back to our young boy in the backyard with his soccerball. Most often the close has a strong element of what lies ahead,what comes next. Maybe he’s thinking about trying out for the flagfootball league or maybe he’s looking at starting his own neighborhoodsoccer league.

You can also tell a story without a using the WSJ format. Just tell astory.

As mentioned before, inexperienced newsletter article writers oftenerr by not interviewing any other sources and as a result, substitutetheir own opinions. Once the writer figures out he/she needs to inter-view other sources, the writer goes the opposite direction and becomesquote happy.

Regardless of the format of the story, put yourself on a quote diet.Be sparing. Do not use quotes to state facts, stats or data. Use quotesto bring out opinions, feelings, things that only that person could say.Do not use quotes to introduce a new piece of information. Use themonly to reinforce a point you have already made. Keep your quotesshort for better impact. Think of a quote as a punch line.

If you find yourself drifting into a sentence-quote- sentence-quote-sentence-quote- sentence-quote- sentence-quote pattern, usually in theback half of a story, change it. You can use information from a quotein narrative form, an indirect quote.

Remember, many professional journalists have taken four or fivesemesters of college course work in those elements of story ideas, gath-ering and story organization. Don’t be frustrated if it doesn’t comenatural. You might want to invite a reporter over to your place of busi-ness and ask for some advice on the various approaches for fall over-seeding. It won’t help your writing, but you will feel better about yourstruggles with it. ■

Dr. Max Utsler teaches journalism at the University of Kansas. He is aformer TV journalist and has trained business executives in how to dealwith the media for the past 25 years.

This is the final in a series of seven articles in the 2010 EwingProfessional Development Series. STMA and Ewing have again part-nered in this series to bring sports turf industry professional develop-ment and career issues to the forefront. For more information, go towww.STMA.org or www.Ewing1.com.

Infill plays critical role in success of synthetic installations

28 SportsTurf | December 2010 www.sportsturfonline.com

Facility&Operations | By Randy Happel

E’VE COME A LONG WAYsince the early 1960s when thefirst artificial turf was installed; asurface that was essentially a

crowned nylon carpet with accompanying padthat was likely installed on a concrete founda-tion. Now in their third generation, today’s syn-thetic turf systems are highly sophisticated engi-neering and design accomplishments construct-ed of soft, natural-looking fibers that are lushlytufted and supported by a granular infill materi-al, most often made from recycled rubber tires.

The complex designs of current syntheticturf systems can make planning a new instal-lation somewhat of a laborious task. After allthe feasibility studies, securing funding, sitesurveys, etc. those entrusted with deciding onall the specifics will soon discover there are amyriad of options available, and a saturatedmarket of system builders and material suppli-ers eager to convince you that their offeringsare better.

Beyond the obvious—choosing anarchitect, turf supplier and reputableinstaller—next come the specifics, paringdown and finalizing the final details andspecifications of what will become the recipefor the new surface. Do not underestimatethe importance of some of the details,including the infill.

TYPES OF INFILLInfill is a required component of all athletic

synthetic turf systems. Some systems requireonly a single infill while others may specify acombination approach. The menu of infillschemes and options is as complex and diversea coaching playbook. Add to the equation allof the different ratios of each substance andvarying application depths, all designed to cre-ate a surface that exhibits a desired property,and it’s easy to see why the infill decision canbe so confusing, yet is also so critical.

There are essentially four types of infillmaterials to consider. The majority of synthet-ic turf systems installed today use styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) crumb infill, a materi-al that originates from recycled rubber tiresground or smashed into small pellet-like parti-cles. SBR crumb has served as the primarytopdressing on synthetic turf surfaces for near-ly two decades and remains the infill of choicetoday primarily because of many attributesincluding elasticity, resiliency, durability andaffordability.

An alternative to crumb rubber, a substancecomposed of a thermoplastic elastomer in theshape of tiny discs of exact and uniform speci-fication has also emerged. In addition, silica-based granules coated with an acrylic liquidthat exhibits some of the properties found in

Encapsulated infill Despite the affirmation of safety declared20 years ago by the EPA and later substan-tiated by scores of independent researchstudies, Colorbiotics, a provider of col-orants headquartered in Ames, IA chal-lenged their team of research scientistsand laboratory technicians to develop aninfill alternative to traditional crumb rub-ber. The result is CushionFall Sport, anencapsulated crumb rubber infill that isamong the most environmentally safe,VOC- and heavy metal- reducing crumbrubber infill products available.

The colored encapsulation coating thatencompasses the individual crumb rubberparticles repels water and moisture morereadily than the traditional recycled crumbmaterial. This allows fields to drain morequickly, promoting a drier playing surface.CushionFall Sport allows for 21% morewater to pass through the playing surfacethan that of standard SBR crumb rubber.

When used as an infill component,ambient rubber has the propensity to floatand scatter as the air bubbles located with-in the rubber facilitate simple infill migra-tion. When SBR rubber is coated it fills thevoids and makes the particles smooth andmore rounded. This facilitates a consistentflow of water through the infill withoutraising and displacing any rubber.

Independent studies show the encapsu-lation process of CushionFall Sport reducesVOCs by 71 percent and heavy metal runoffby 80 percent.

Over time, traditional crumb rubberinfill loses flexibility and elasticity aftercontinuous exposure to bright sunlight.CushionFall Sport protects the properties ofthe rubber, extending longevity and dura-bility. The material is also UV-resistant,helping fields retain their shock-absorptionproperties and reducing static charge oftencreated by the various components com-mon to synthetic turf surfaces.

The bright green encapsulation coatingcontributes to a more vibrant, realistic-appearing surface and eliminates the 5o’clock shadow effect common with blackcrumb rubber.

www.cushionfallsport.com ■

W

Infill is a required component of all athletic synthetic turf systems.

Editor’s note: Randy Happel of Two Rivers Marketing in Des Moines wrote this article on behalfof CushionFall Sport, Ames, IA. We believe it contains good information on synthetic infill productsand installation.

SportsTurf 29www.stma.org

crumb rubber have also entered the scene. Because these materials areproduced specifically for synthetic turf applications, project ownersshould be aware that using either will add roughly 20% to the overallcost of a field compared to crumb rubber.

It’s the infill in conjunction with varying fiber specifications thatallows architects and system designers create a playing surface thatexhibits a desired property with playability characteristics that are con-ducive to maximizing athletic performance. What you want to accom-plish on the turf often dictates what will be specified of the variousmaterial components selected to construct the field.

The vast majority of infill materials are installed in combinationwith silica or natural sand, which serves to stabilize the playing surface.Sand promotes a firm and stable foundation and also helps maintainthe integrity of the individual synthetic fibers by keeping them upright,evenly spaced and enhancing their resiliency. The infill is also essentialto ensure seam integrity and eliminates the creation of wrinkles on thesurfaces.

Typical infill ratios (sand versus crumb material, etc.) can vary from40 to 80% blade coverage. Generally speaking, the more sand, thefirmer and faster the surface. Tufting companies will work with the sys-tem’s integrator and installer to specify the tufting style (who knew,right?); along with the infill ratio and materials for the field, all dictatedby pre-determined formulas that they have established in order to war-ranty surface performance factors and to pass specific EPA, ASTM andother authorities’ standards and testing.

Infill materials will vary in size, color, quality, shape and mass andwill differ in their abrasiveness, which, if high, can affect the integrityof the yarn fibers, depending on frequency of use over time. Finer,rounder silica sand has replaced the everyday beach variety and is lessabrasive to fibers and less susceptible to compaction.

Infill materials can often vary in quality; project owners should exer-cise caution to secure materials that meet or exceed the specificationsrecommended by ASTM standards. To meet warranty specifications,many system integrators will insist that infill materials meet or exceedtheir surface materials specification or surface warranties will likely bevoided.

Infill providers will be able to provide material safety, handling,installation and manufacturing specifications, along with life expectan-cy. Typically, most infill components installed on synthetic turf systemsretain their effective use properties for an average of seven to 10 yearsand few infill providers will carry any type of warranty on the infillcomponent.

THE ENCAPSULATION EQUATIONSome infill offerings are also available in an encapsulated form, a

process involving the application of a coating that encompasses theindividual crumb particles. Encapsulation offers several advantages overstandard “raw” infill material offerings. Often a colorant is added to theliquid encapsulation coating that can help to reduce the temperature ofthe playing surface and, as is the case with crumb rubber, disguises thedark black color inherent to the raw material source. This provides foran infill that blends with the hues of the synthetic turf fibers makingthe surface more realistic-appearing and aesthetically pleasing.

The bright green infill material also helps to eliminate the “fiveo’clock shadow” effect common with traditional crumb rubber,enhancing broadcasts of sporting events, many of which are transmit-ted via a high-definition signal. The coating often helps to minimizethe electromagnetic properties of rubber, reducing the static cling ten-dencies resulting from the friction created by the rubber and syntheticmaterials in contact, and the magnetic attraction of athletic uniforms,the majority of which are composed of polyester or synthetic fibers.

The number of synthetic turf installations has exploded in recentyears, but just as the popularity of these systems has grown so too hasthe scrutiny. Most targeted is the crumb rubber infill, especially sincethe substance is used in the vast majority of installations and theamount present on each field is substantial. Before the first field wasever installed using recycled rubber tires as an infill, safety has driventhe development of synthetic surfaces incorporating recycled crumbrubber as a materials component. To date more than 75 studies havebeen completed, among the most recent and comprehensive, an in-depth analysis of crumb rubber completed by the Corporation forManufacturing Excellence (MANEX), San Ramon, CA in conjunc-tion with the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Sustainability(LMAS) at the University of California-Berkeley. The study, as do allthose preceding the MANEX / UC-Berkeley testing, concludes thatrecycled crumb rubber is a safe material for use in synthetic turfapplications. ■

30 SportsTurf | December 2010 www.sportsturfonline.com

FieldScience

TIFSPORTThe bermudagrass picture for the

University of Georgia’s two mainstay vari-eties reflects the somewhat down economy.Plentiful supply of TifSport and Tifway 419with suppressed demand and thus lowerprices. That should be good news for sportsturf managers looking to renovate or for newinstallations. You can expect excellent qualityTifway 419 from certified producers in all ofthe warm season states and certified TifSportwill continue to be popular for its improvedcold tolerance, dark green color and ability tohandle heavy overseeding.

UGA’s new TifGrand bermudagrass wasdeveloped by world-renowned turfgrassbreeder Dr. Wayne Hanna and was releasedin limited quantities in 2010. TifGrand,which should be available in good supply inmost markets for the 2011 season, is theworld’s first seed and pollen sterile (triploidhybrid) bermudagrass and thrives in up to60% shade. With the modern trend to buildever more vertical stadiums to gain additionalseating, shade issues on sports fields havebecome increasingly problematic. This newcertified shade tolerant bermudagrass wasdeveloped to overcome traditional bermuda-

grass shade problems on sports fields.TifGrand also has naturally dark greenblades, tawny-mole cricket non-preferenceand significantly lower nitrogen and waterrequirements. Currently there are licensedTifGrand producers in NC, SC, GA, FL,AL, TX, AZ, and HA.-Brian Schwartz

PENNINGTON SEEDWe at Pennington Seed will not be releas-

ing new cool season or warm season cultivarsthis spring though we do have a few in thepipeline for release in the fall of 2011 andspring 2012.

The production of perennial ryegrass hascontinued to decrease in Oregon productiondue to a few factors, i.e. the decrease indemand, the carry over of high cost seedfrom years past, and the current wheatprices. Wheat is a nice rotation crop for thefarmers as it allows them to clean the field ofgrasses. Some farmers are continuing for thesecond year of wheat vs. the standard oneyear rotation due to low rye grass prices andadequate wheat prices.

Prices will remain low through the falland possibly the spring of 2011 thoughmany feel that fall of 2011 will see a price

increase due to the smaller inventories andproduction.

The inventory of improved Bermuda culti-vars is better than years past though produc-tion cost have increased. We will continue tohold our pricing stable despite the increasedcost. Common bermuda prices will likelyincrease as the spring progresses and suppliesdwindle.-Russ Nicholson

ENVIRONMENTAL TURF, INC.More and more professional stadiums as

well as municipalities in warm-season turfzones are using seashore paspalum for theirsports fields. Aloha seashore paspalum andSeaDwarf seashore paspalum are grown as sodor sprigs. The grasses are produced by licensedsod farms through Environmental Turf’s net-work of licensed growers.

Aloha seashore paspalum was developed bybreeders at the University of Florida. Aloha hasa very vigorous growth rate that makes it heal

Update on turfgrassvarieties for 2011Editor’s note: We asked some turfgrass seed experts for comments on the 2011 crop of vari-eties for sports turf use, specifically what will be available next spring and whether priceswill be up or down.

>> ROMMEL FERNANDEZ National SoccerStadium in Panama grassed with SeaDwarfseashore paspalum.

West Coast TurfWest Coast Turf isintroducing Platinum TE in2011, a Seashore Paspalumvariety, says sales managerJohn Marman, who addsthat “Costs are stagnant;they will remain the samein 2011.”

>> LOUISVILLE SLUGGER FIELD featuring TurfBlue, a fast-germinating Kentucky bluegrass.Award-winning groundskeeper Tom Nielsen says,“The color is really good and looks awesomefrom the stands. Considering how hot it’s beenthe grass is doing amazingly well. The wear toler-ance has been very good too. Good early springgreen up as well’ it was green by March 27.”