Safe Healthy Playing Fields

Rutgers University, 2017

Rutgers University has released a free manual for organic landscaping and land management. Download it here!

National Grass Advisory Group, 2017

Informational Webinars on making grass turf and grass sports fields better and more durable

Growing Green Grass, Blog

Innovative discussions and solutions for managing high quality turfgrass (aka natural grass) blog by Jerad Minnick who until 2014 directed grounds and environment at the Maryland SoccerPlex maintaining both natural and synthetic turf fields.  

Turf Republic, October 11, 2014

"With an existing field, as little as 1/10th of the amount of money needed for 1- synthetic field is needed to improve and maintain that grass field over 10 years.  In a world of tight budgets, spending to improve and maintain 10 existing grass fields correctly instead of building 1 synthetic will make a significant difference."

"Additionally, to build and maintain a quality grass field that is rainout proof, 1/3 to 1/2 of the monetary investment of a synthetic field is required over 10 years."

Growing Green Grass, June 8, 2013

"Certainly much debate is around synthetic being able to sustain higher amounts of concerts, monster trucks, etc.  But with these multiple events, synthetic fields are failing at higher rates as well. And their replacement cost is much higher than grass field replacement costs."

Sports Turf, October 2012

"Jerad Minnick explains that a correctly built sand-based field does well in the rain. 'Following Hurricane Irene and a Tropical Depression that brought over 13 inches to DC in 4 days, the University of Maryland moved a rainy day match to SoccerPlex. The grass field at Maryland was unplayable but the grass field at SoccerPlex Stadium was ready for play.' "

Sports Field Management, October 1, 2012

"The high quality warm-season fields are used about 900 to 950 hours per year, and the cool-season fields support 700 to 750 hours of play. (The [Montgomery] report said max 400-600 hours). 'We prove every  day that the grass field will take more traffic than we ever thought. The more we evolve our ways, the more a grass field will be able to take,' Minnick says."

SportsTurf, August 2012

"Minnick also authored an article explaining that 'going "green" is not a complex issue. It is a basic issue of conservation, eliminating unnecessary pesticide and fertilizer use and timing watering properly to conserve. He also reports that lawnmower technology is improving – hybrid mowers use up to 40% less diesel fuel and are comparable in cost to conventional mowers.' "