Thank you to guest blogger, Carl Schimenti, Cornell Turfgrass Program Extension Support Specialist.

Precision turf management allows for applying resources only where most needed.

Fields like the one below, filled with weeds and bare soil, are a common occurrence across schools in NY state. Clearly, this is a playability and athlete safety concern. When visiting a facility like this, the first question is always “how do we fix it?”.

There are a couple things you could do like aeration, topdressing, applying fertilizer or installing irrigation. These practices can improve a field, but the power is not truly realized until you do the most basic of field maintenance practices – overseeding! Overseeding – or applying turfgrass seed into an existing stand of turf – is the backbone of a successful field maintenance program.

When done even without supplemental fertilizer or irrigation, repetitive overseeding has been shown to nearly double the amount turfgrass density by the end of the season). Over time, this can lead to significant reductions in weed populations. The reason overseeding is effective at reducing weeds is a simple numbers game. The more turfgrass seeds in the soil, the higher probability they will germinate over other weed seeds. Conversely, if overseeding is not conducted, weed problems can quickly get out of hand. That dandelion puffball? A single one can produce up to 37,000 seeds! Without constant deposits of turfgrass, the soil becomes saturated with weed seeds.

Of course, there are details involved with what method to use when overseeding, seed selection, seed rates, when to apply, etc. For those, you can visit our safe sports fields website. But in this brief blurb, I’d like to focus on the first thing most facility managers will ask about, which is cost. Table 1 shows the annual costs of routine overseeding (four times per year) that would be appropriate on various areas of soccer and football fields.

^* Based on four applications × 4 lbs seed per 1000 ft².

^** Costs calculated at $2 per pound of seed.

On the scale of entire fields, $2000 or more may be a cost that school districts are not able to afford, but when done on only localized areas of the field that receive high traffic, overseeding seems to be a very reasonable expense at just under $500 per field, per year. This is precision turf management at work, applying resources only where most needed.

Notice, “per year”, highlighted in bold. In my opinion, overseeding athletic fields is as fundamental to athletic field maintenance as mowing and must be part of its perpetual care (otherwise, you might as well call it a lawn). Furthermore, the benefits of overseeding compound each year, just like interest, resulting in larger improvements in turf quality and weed control for each subsequent year it’s conducted.

Please, invest in seed. The return will be more playable, and crucially, SAFER playing fields for your athletes. If you’d like to learn more about maintenance of athletic fields, please visit our Safe Sports Fields Website.