By Pam Sherratt
It’s Friday night and it has been raining all day. Your high school football team has just finished winning a big league game and emotions are running high. After all the high fives and congratulatory hand shakes, you turn your attention to the field. What you see is a 100-yard mud hole. You start thinking about what needs to be done to prepare the field for next week’s game. So what do you do? Continue reading Emergency Field Repairs
By Amanda Folck
Hi Everyone!
Today is my last day working with Pam Sherratt as a Turfgrass Student Assistant. It is a huge honor to work with Pam and many of the students, people from the turfgrass industry plus faculty and
staff that I get the pleasure to work with during my two years at Ohio State. I am graduating on May 7 and receiving my Bachelors of Science degree in Turfgrass and minor in Plant Pathology. I have accepted Continue reading Starting a New Chapter
By Amanda Folck
On April 21, the Turf Club was represented at the Ag Olympics competition. It was an event that had 12 other college fraternities, sororities, and organizations from CFAES competing for the top prize. Events included best uniforms, tug of war, backyard jenga, water balloon toss, etc. For their first appearance at the Ag Olympics in 28 years, the Turf Club came in 3rd place!
The Turf Club also sponsored the golf outing held at Homestead Springs Golf Course on April 23rd. During the event, over 28 sponsors and 24 teams participated at the outing. The total money raised at the outing was $4,500! The money raised will go toward the OSU Turf Club for expenses such as taking students to represent Ohio State in Turf Bowl competitions at GIS and STMA conferences in 2018. Thank you for those that came out for the golf outing. Continue reading Ohio State Turf Club Update
By Pam Sherratt and John Street
In addition to leaf area, a direct relationship exists between the height of the turfgrass and the depth and total mass of the root system. Continue reading Mowing Heights for Athletic Fields
By Pam Sherratt
Extended periods of cool, wet spring weather this year has triggered extensive leaf spot on lawns. This is a troublesome spring diseases on Kentucky bluegrass (especially common bluegrasses), fescues and other lawn grasses. 
Some leaf spot can be found on most home lawns in the spring, but it normally does not cause significant damage to the lawn. This year due to the weather conditions leaf spot has occurred and now in progressing into the melting-out phase. Leaf spot is caused by several different fungi. The fungus overwinters in the thatch layer or in small lesions on leaf blades. Continue reading Leaf Spot/Melting Out
By Pamela Sherratt
What can you do when your turf is flooded after all the precipitation occurs?
Submerged turf needs to be uncovered quickly and renovated, since turf will die if it is submerged under water for several days. It’s important to get the water off asap and pumps can help to do this. Removing deposited silt and debris will be the next big task ahead. Brooms, rakes, vacuums and/or high pressure hoses can help to get the silt and debris off the turf. Tilling the silt into the top few inches of soil will cause all kinds of surface drainage problems in the future so the silt must be completely removed from site. Once the silt has been removed, evaluate the turf damage. If the field has been submerged more than a few days the grass will likely be dead so new turf establishment will be needed. Continue reading Dealing with Flooded Turf
By Pamela Sherratt and John Street
Growth covers can offer many advantages to field managers
Consistent rain and low temperatures, coupled with cloudy days (sunlight seems to have been non-existent), has led to some pretty unhappy grass lately.
The sports facilities are closing their fields down for the winter. Those facilities that host spring games might investigate purchasing a growth cover/tarp. Continue reading Extending the Green on Athletic Fields
By Pam Sherratt
Snow mold appears on baseball field and newly planted lawns!
Snow Mold
Source: OSU Turfgrass Pathology
With the snow gone, pink snow mold is present on turfgrass, especially on immature, lush, succulent stands of grass seeded last fall. In general, snow cover was not of long enough duration this past winter for the development of gray snow molds. There are some situations where light damage of gray snow mold is present but these are limited to sites where snow was piled up for long periods of time or in snow belt areas.
Only one week until the 20th Annual Sportsturf Short Course at Nationwide 4-H Building at Ohio State! To register for the conference and more information, click here.