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With the Maryland SoccerPlex
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A weekly newsletter to keep you informed about EVERYTHING Turf at the Maryland SoccerPlex.
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This week we will look into 3 very important remedies for field repair: seeding, sprigging, and sodding.
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The remedy we've been looking for!
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Often times we will have an issue about midseason with turfgrass either thinning, going bare in spots or never coming back from being dormant. There are a few different solutions we have to solve this issue. Each option has different pros and different cons and there is no universal solution for every single situation.
Seeding, also known as overseeding, is a periodic but routine application of seed to an existing turfgrass to help improve turf density. When choosing the seed
for your home lawn, be sure to choose a seed variety that will succeed with your specific growing conditions (shady/sunny/wet/etc.). At the SoccerPlex, in order to keep a consistent playing surface, if/when we overseed we always use the same type of turfgrass. For example, we are currently about to start our fall overseeding here at the Plex. Over the next two weeks we will plant over 6,000lb of seed into our 12 cool-season fields! As we have discussed in previous turf-talks, our cool-season fields are mostly a mix of Kentucky Bluegrass (KBG) and Perennial ryegrass (PR), and all of our overseeding that we will do will involve only those two varieties. Some fields (our recently renovated fields that we added drainage to) will receive almost exclusively KBG, while our older surfaces that have yet to be renovated will receive more PR.
Once correct seed is chosen it can then be applied to the area needed. To prepare
your surface, there a couple steps you can take to help promote consistent and even growth. If seeding a bare area, it is important to rake up and loosen some of the soil at the surface, so that when you apply your seed, it ends up getting mixed in with some of the soil in the top ¼" or so, trying to create as much "seed-to-soil" contact as you possibly can. The soil around the seed helps to hold water and increase germination rates of your grass seed, in addition, the soil contains essential nutrients that a seedling needs to survive and continue to grow. If you are truly overseeding (applying additional seed to an existing stand of grass), it can be helpful to aerify your lawn prior to seeding, to allow a place for the seed to drop into and be protected during the germination process. You can apply seed many different ways, from "chicken-feeding" by hand, to using a drop spreader or rotary spreader (recommended).
Here at the Plex, we use large equipment to assist in our seeding practices, both drop style and also disc-style, with the goal of actually planting the seed in the ground rather than just have it sitting on top of the soil surface. Once seed is applied proper irrigation practices should be followed if possible. General rule of thumb is that you want to water morning and evening until you see that you have seed germinating, then back off the evening water, only irrigating in the morning until the seed is established. Also use mother nature to your advantage whenever possible! If we have multiple days of rain (not storms with heavy rainfall) forecasted, applying your seed just prior to that can give you free, consistent irrigation without having to use any of your own water.
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