Category Archives: School Grounds

Specific IPM for school grounds and athletic fields

Managing traffic is IPM

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Are you interested in turfgrass management? Especially as it relates to sports fields? Then the ShortCUTT (Cornell University Turfgrass Times) newsletter, written by Associate Professor and Extension Turfgrass Specialist, Dr. Frank Rossi, is for you! Check out a segment of this week’s offerings.
To receive a copy of the weekly newsletter, e-mail program manager, Carl Schimenti at css223@cornell.edu. Prefer your information verbally? Subscribe to the weekly Turf Talk podcast.

Frequently Asked Questions:

In the simplest of terms, the more use a field receives, the more preparation it will need prior to the initiation of use, maintenance during the traffic period, and recovery maintenance following the traffic. Photo: Bob Portmess

My fields are showing wear stress already after three weeks of use as a result of rainy and now very warm conditions. I’m trying to speak with coaches and parents about field use under these conditions. They keep asking the same question of me, “how many hours of use CAN the field handle”? Can you help?

First big kudos for recognizing the need to communicate with your clients regarding the conditions and safety of the fields. Effective communication is the consistent characteristic of successful professional sports turf managers. We have provided some useful tools to assist with the general information for players, parents, coaches and athletic directors at http://safesportsfields.cals.cornell.edu/coaches.

Additionally, there will not be any hard fast answer to the question without some qualification and understanding of the root zone, type of use, maintenance inputs, and visual quality expectations.

Our first responsibility is to ensure player safety as measured by field hardness, evenness and traction; other field issues become subjective as to what constitutes an “acceptable playing surface”. Again, there are gray areas when discussing amount of use, as poor weather experienced over the last 30 days has led to significantly more wear stress and field decline than expected under average weather patterns. Finally, larger amounts of managed field area that allows for dispersal of focused traffic and the availability of synthetic surfaces both significantly increase overall amount of natural grass playing field use.

Rootzones:

Soil properties impact traffic tolerance.

Loamy soil root zones with some drainage and some irrigation can withstand more than the average amount of use. Sand-based fields with excellent drainage can withstand significantly more than the average amount of use.

Type of Use:

Any type of field use that results in repetitive focused traffic, i.e., between the hash marks, goal mouths, sidelines, will reduce the amount of field use. Larger male athletes create more traffic stress than lighter female athletes. Youth sports with smaller athletes and smaller field dimensions that can be rotated, allow for much more use than average. Again rotation allows for dispersal of the traffic.

Schools and community parks are able to provide different levels of field maintenance based on their budget and the resources on hand that include labor (knowledge and experience), equipment and products. Other factors play into shifting resources, such as desired quality, type of field and use (practice vs game fields).

Maintenance Inputs:

Reasonable care of fields is expected as outlined in ASTM F2060 for cool season natural grass fields – this will include some amount of field rest and recovery as outlined in these important maintenance schedules. In the simplest of terms, the more use a field receives, the more preparation it will need prior to the initiation of use, maintenance during the traffic period, and recovery maintenance following the traffic. No maintenance program will compensate for overuse that leads to decline in field quality below acceptable levels and will need a routine turf replacement program as seen in most professional sporting venues.

Visual Quality Expectations:

A soft, bright green field with poor traction is less safe than a slightly brown, firm, even surface. Photo: Joellen Lampman

Players, coaches, parents and Athletic Directors have the right expect to safe playing fields. Sports turf managers must have field safety measurements to effectively determine when field use leads to decline in safety. The visual quality of the field often is correlated to field safety but not always, as a soft bright green field with poor traction is less safe than a slightly brown firm even surface.

In the end, general guidelines suggest good field conditions can be maintained with reasonable care at between 400-600 hours of use per year per field. Beyond 600 hours of use expect a loss in field quality and significant thinning and wear areas even under ideal conditions.

 

Many thanks to Frank Rossi for providing permission to share this information. For more information on sports field management, visit the Cornell Turfgrass page on Sports Turf and the New York State Integrated Pest Management page on Landscapes, Parks, and Golf Courses.

Pests and pupils don’t mix

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Year in and out, outreach to schools has our community IPM staff going back to school. Literally. We work with maintenance staff, nurses, groundskeepers, teachers, and parents. We provide the insight and know-how it takes to keep kids safe from pests and pesticides both. But schools are tricky to manage because—well, think of them as a village. You’ve got your cafeterias, laboratories, auditoriums, theaters, classrooms, athletic fields, playgrounds. Add in vacation and after-hours use for public meetings, community sports teams, summer schools and camps. Plus, New York’s laws restrict when, where and how pesticides can be used at school.

Which means you’ve got work. Because chances are, you’ve got pests.

Worried about ticks? By rights you should be. The hazards can hardly be overstated. We help teachers, school nurses, and entire communities learn how to stay tick-free regardless the season—and warn them that old-time remedies could increase the likelihood of disease.

Next up—unsafe playing fields. Is there goose poo on athletic fields and playgrounds? It’s not just unsanitary—it makes for slick footing and falls. And take it from us: weedy, compacted soil is a “slick footing and falls” risk too. How to manage turf, pesticide-free? We teach repetitive overseeding as a thoughtful alternative to repetitive herbicides. We’ll get to that in another post.

And then you’ve got your ants, bed bugs, cockroaches, drain flies, drugstore beetles, fleas, grubs, lice, mice, mosquitoes, pigeons, rats, termites and wasps. Did we say we get calls? Each year we field several hundred. Then, of course, there’s the workshops we lead, the conferences we speak at, the media interviews we give. Work, yes, but also deeply rewarding.

 

What now? Winter sports field management

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The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory. – Gary Zukav

Winter solstice. Photo credit: nicolas_gent flickr

It’s now officially winter, but even now there are steps you can take to improve your fields for the spring season.

  • Attend educational programs – The Cornell Turf Team presents at numerous events during the winter months. Check our Facebook events pages for events near you. NYS IPM Program staff presentations can be found here. Your local BOCES also offers seminars. Don’t hesitate to give them suggestions for topics you are interested in learning more about. Can’t find a presentation near you? Check out the Cornell Turfgrass sports turf resources. You don’t need to dedicate much time out of each day on the website to greatly increase your turf management knowledge.

    Field management schedules can provide justification for your budget.

  • Check out the Field Management Schedules at http://safesportsfields.cals.cornell.edu/schedules. On deck: dormant overseeding. These schedules can also help you in developing (and defending) your budget.
  • Conduct site assessments for each field to direct resources (products, equipment, labor) to areas with greatest need. While you won’t be able to rate turf color or feel of ground, you can assess bare spots and where ice is accumulating – both areas to target for aerification, topdressing to raise low spots, and overseeding. For more information, visit http://safesportsfields.cals.cornell.edu/site-assessment. Once the growing season begins, be sure to update your site assessment.

    Cornell University turf specialist Frank Rossi talks about how to manage athletic fields to reduce injuries.

  • Develop or adjust field scheduling protocol – It takes a village to maintain safe, healthy fields and now is good time to begin or continue conversations about field scheduling. We have covered this topic at http://safesportsfields.cals.cornell.edu/field-scheduling. If you need help in convincing administrators, athletic directors, and coaches in the importance of investing in and protecting sports fields, the half hour presentation by Dr. Frank Rossi on Duty of Care covers a topic sure to prick up their ears – liability.
  • Maintain equipment – In between snow removal and frantic bed bug calls, make sure those mower blades are sharp and balanced. Spring will be here before you know it.

For the most up-to-date information on sports field management, follow the Cornell Turfgrass Program on Facebook and Twitter.

The Role of School Nurses in Integrated Pest Management for Public Health

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By Meredith Swett Walker. Originally published on Entomology Today, by the Entomological Society of America, November 2017. Republished with permission.

tick cubes and spoon

Tick specimens embedded in Lucite can help school nurses distinguish disease carrying ticks like Ixodes scapularis from other species. Nurses are also provided with a tick removal tool with a web address directing them to online IPM resources for schools. (Photo credit: Kathy Murray, Ph.D.)

School nurses do more than just apply bandages to scraped knees and administer asthma inhalers. They are also health educators, they help control communicable diseases, and they even do some pest management.

Meredith Swett Walker

In the past, the dreaded head louse (Pediculus humanus capitis) was likely the only pest a school nurse needed to worry about. But, with the rise of arthropod-borne diseases like Lyme disease, West Nile, and Zika, nurses increasingly find themselves thinking about tick and mosquito control as well. Bed bugs, meanwhile, are also cause for concern, and as head lice evolve resistance to traditional insecticidal treatments, even these pests require more sophisticated control methods. But school nurses typically haven’t received training in pest ecology or integrated pest management (IPM.)

At Entomology 2017 in Denver, Kathy Murray, Ph.D., of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry presented her work with the Northeast School Integrated Pest Management Working Group to engage school nurses in IPM for public health pests in schools. This project aims to give school nurses the tools, resources, and training that they need to promote and support IPM policies in schools. The work was endorsed by the National School Nurse Association and supported by the Northeastern IPM Center.

In the last 15 years, many states have started requiring schools to practice IPM. This may seem odd, but a school campus is essentially a large public property, and any property, be it a building or open space, has pests. Usually, IPM efforts in schools focus on facility managers or custodians. But school nurses deal directly with the effects of these pests on students and can be an important addition to the IPM team.

In many public schools, resources are spread thin. Facility managers may not always have the budget for the labor or materials necessary for effective IPM. But when facility managers and nurses come together to ask administrators or school boards for more resources for IPM, their requests have more heft, says Murray.

New England Nurse Conf 2017 table

The Northeast School Integrated Pest Management Working Group has presented its project to engage nurses in IPM at nursing conferences. (Photo credit: Kathy Murray, Ph.D.)

In the Northeast, ticks are a major concern, particularly Ixodes scapularis (also known as the blacklegged tick or the deer tick), which transmits Lyme disease. Students may come in with ticks they picked up at home or can even pick up ticks on the school grounds. The project supplies school nurses with a tick removal tool, as well as actual ticks embedded in Lucite to aid in distinguishing disease-carrying species from non-vectors. When nurses learn more about tick ecology, they can help identify potential tick habitat on campus and work with facility managers to get it removed.

Mosquito bites themselves are not a major concern for school nurses, but arboviruses like Zika or West Nile are. When nurses know more about the behavior and ecology of mosquitoes, they can help identify mosquito breeding sites on campus, such as small pockets of standing water, and work with facility managers to address them. Where arboviruses are a serious concern, nurses may advocate for outdoor sporting events to be scheduled to avoid peak mosquito activity periods like dusk.

Murray found one health-pest relationship that many nurses were unaware of: the connection between cockroaches, mice, and asthma. The fecal material and urine of these pests are potent asthma triggers. Unfortunately, schools are a prime habitat for mice and roaches. There is food present in the cafeteria and often the classroom. In addition, school buildings are typically unoccupied at night, when mice and roaches are most active. Some research has even shown higher levels of pest-related allergens in school buildings than in the average student’s home. If nurses are concerned about asthma attacks at school, managing pests may help.

In her presentation at the Entomological Society of America’s 2017 annual meeting, Murray made the case that school nurses are often at the front lines of pest-related public health challenges. They can also be essential bridges to the wider community. When confronted with a pest problem, “nurses would like to have some solid, research-based, concise information—in multiple languages” that they can share with students’ families. The IPM project is working to provide that. While some school nurses may have never envisioned IPM as part of their job description, Murray says she has found the school nurses she works with to be interested in IPM and “very passionate about protecting student’s health.”

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Meredith Swett Walker is a former avian endocrinologist who now studies the development and behavior of two juvenile humans in the high desert of western Colorado. When she is not handling her research subjects, she writes about science and nature. You can read her work on her blogs Pica Hudsonia and The Citizen Biologist or follow her on Twitter at @mswettwalker.

Sandbox or Litterbox – You Decide

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Raccoons defecate in communal sites, called latrines. Raccoon feces usually are dark and tubular and have a pungent odor. – from Raccoon Latrines: Identification and Clean-up

Raccoons are pretty cute, but you really don’t want them pooping on the property. Photo: Nell McIntosh

When I was younger, raccoons were my favorite animal. It was hard to resist their clever little hands and cute bandit masks. My stuffed raccoon was named Rickie. Even when I was old enough to learn about rabies, my love didn’t wane. But then, when taking a wildlife rehabilitation workshop, I learned about Baylisascaris procyonis (raccoon roundworm), which is passed in raccoon feces. They recommended using a blowtorch to kill the eggs of this intestinal parasite which can enter the human eye and nervous system. The cuddly raccoon lost its place in my heart.

My love/hate relationship with raccoons came to mind when I saw the CDC has released a fact sheet on raccoon latrines and Baylisascaris procyonis. In it, they state “Young children or developmentally disabled persons are at highest risk for infection as they may be more likely to put contaminated fingers, soil, or objects into their mouths”, but fail to point out that sandboxes can serve as a raccoon latrine.  (They do state it as a possibility here.) Of course, cats, which carry their own suite of parasites, are more likely to use sandboxes as their own personal litter box, so it is good IPM to prevent all types of animals from accessing your sandy play areas.

The easiest way to keep sandboxes from becoming litter boxes is to not have any sandboxes at all.

The idea is good, but the implementation is lacking. Without securing it, animals can easily slip under the tarp. Photo: Joellen Lampman

Bu, if you believe, like so many, that there are sensory and group play opportunities with sandboxes (just Google “sand play activities”), then there are steps you can take to prevent animals from gaining access.

  • Keep sanitation a priority to avoid attracting wildlife – ensure that trash is cleaned up and put in a sealed container at the end of each day. (This will also help with other pests such as rats and yellow jackets.)
  • Have a “no food in the sandbox” rule – there is no need to provide an enticement for local animals to check out the box.
  • Pest proof your buildings (including outbuildings) to reduce den sites.
  • Have a solid box bottom  – not only will this help prevent sand loss, but will prevent animals from burrowing in from underneath.
  • Have a durable cover on your box and make sure it is only uncovered during playtime.

    Sandbox with cover rolled back. Photo: Gil Garcia

    Tarp ties on the sandbox hold the tarp securely in place. Photo: Gil Garcia

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you find a latrine, check out the CDC fact sheet that includes information on cleaning it up while protecting your health. (Spoiler alert: they also recommend using a propane torch as chemicals will not kill the eggs.)

Just a note that raccoon latrines can be found in other areas, including (yikes!) inside buildings. Be sure to pest proof your buildings to prevent raccoons (and squirrels and bats and birds) from making your building their new den. To keep wildlife out of your buildings and discourage them from your grounds, visit the NYS IPM Program web page: What’s Bugging You: Wayward Wanderers.