Each month two speakers presenting at the 2019 National SFMA Conference and Exhibition in Phoenix, Arizona will be featured. Don’t miss the educational opportunities offered at the conference!
Marc Moran, CSFM is an Agriculture/Turf Science teacher at Atlee High School in Mechanicsville, VA. On Wednesday, January 23 and again on Friday, January 25, he will be presenting “Tackling Traffic: Reducing Traffic on Multi-Use Fields”.
This presentation focuses on techniques applied at Atlee High School to reduce traffic and work within a very tight budget. Education, communication channels, traffic rotation plans, and innovative field layouts has allowed for reduced traffic and wear in high traffic areas. This has reduced traffic on football, soccer, field hockey, and lacrosse fields. Limited by budgets, these techniques have allowed us to work within a tight financial structure and still provide SFMA FOY caliber fields.
Attendees will learn:
– Effective communication practices that foster ownership of field conditions on coaches.
– Education strategies to teach various user groups the impact of traffic and the costs associated with excessive wear.
– Marking and layout strategies that help to maximize practice opportunities while also reducing wear in high traffic areas.
Ross Kurcab, CSFM is a Turfgrass/Sportsfield Consultant for Championship Sports Turf Systems based out of Colorado. On Wednesday, January 23, he will be presenting “New Technologies in Sports Field Sod Production, Installation, and Maintenance”.
Natural grass playing surfaces are booked with more and more games. Non-sporting event revenue has skyrocketed in the last 20 years, requiring a greater and greater carrying capacity for natural grass playing fields to meet their missions. With our nation’s current shortage of sports fields, and a resurgence in the popularity of natural grass playing surfaces, sodding for repair is becoming accepted as a routine maintenance procedure to extend the use, or carrying capacity, of our limited number of ball fields. However, we have sometimes learned the hard way that not just any sod will do. Whether for in-season repair, off-season repair or new field construction, getting the right sod is critical to success. This presentation will examine the current state of the art commercial sod production for sports fields from the field managers point of view, the end user, and explore ways to ensure that your fields can make it to the finish line with a quality surface for the entire season. Case studies will include installations with video and images, both from my experiences and others, to enhance the message: Sports field sod is best custom grown.
Attendees will learn about new technologies in sports field sod production and installation, surface stability, soil physical science, soil fertility, turfgrass variety selection and documentation, PGR’s, sports field quick-repair techniques and strategies, sports field sod installation methods and equipment, sports field sod performance testing, writing sod specifications, sod project management, sod costing, improving durability (carrying capacity) of natural grass fields, organic surface accumulation management and effect on playability.
