Pictures from an athletic field contractor

[Complete Turf Care]

More work with the recycling dresser yesterday.

And more deep tine aeration today

 

[Sportsman762]

Lips are a hump or bump that develops over time in the grass area right next to the skinned area. Sort of like a small levee. This can cause a ground ball to bounce erratically or even cause a twisted ankle.

I worked grounds keeping in college. My group handled all the intramural fields. We would use a ryans sod cutter and go three passes around the outer edge of the field. Then we would dig the hump out with Kubota BX loaders and by shovel then relay the sod. Was crummy work but we could not take the fields out of service long as they were used all year around. What sort of finish does that machine leave on the sod?

 

[Complete Turf Care]

I worked grounds keeping in college. My group handled all the intramural fields. We would use a ryans sod cutter and go three passes around the outer edge of the field. Then we would dig the hump out with Kubota BX loaders and by shovel then relay the sod. Was crummy work but we could not take the fields out of service long as they were used all year around. What sort of finish does that machine leave on the sod?

I've seen it done the way you described. That works really good, but requires lots of labor.

Our method can be done with 2 men in air-conditioned tractors. It takes about an hour to do a field.

If we do it during the summer growing season, the grass will grow back in about 2-3 weeks. It somewhat depends on how much we have to remove. We rarely remove more than about 2", which will leave plenty of roots to grow back quickly.

 

[Sportsman762]

I've seen it done the way you described. That works really good, but requires lots of labor.

Our method can be done with 2 men in air-conditioned tractors. It takes about an hour to do a field.

If we do it during the summer growing season, the grass will grow back in about 2-3 weeks. It somewhat depends on how much we have to remove. We rarely remove more than about 2", which will leave plenty of roots to grow back quickly.

We normally had 2" or less removed too. It was very labor intensive with four or five folks, a Kubota BX, two Kubota RTV's to haul clippings away and a sod cutter taking a day or two per field. But we only did a field every three or so years and had fifteen fields.

 

[Complete Turf Care]

Removing grass so we can till and start laser grading this baseball field.

 

[JethroB]

Removing grass so we can till and start laser grading this baseball field.

Interesting. Can the removed grass be used for sprigging?

 

[Complete Turf Care]

Interesting. Can the removed grass be used for sprigging?

Yes it could be. But in this case we sprayed to kill it. First application was a high rate of Fusilade. The second application 10 days later was a nuclear rate of glyphosate.

We killed it because we need to get all the grass off so we can till and grade it. Also because we will be going back with a different variety of Bermuda grass.

 

[Complete Turf Care]

Finished removing the grass today and got it all tilled. Heading home tomorrow morning and I plan to be back next week to start laser grading it.
This is a time lapse of 3 hours of tilling today.

 

[Complete Turf Care]

Haven't posted here in a few days, because I've been busy on this baseball field. It's getting close to being ready to sprig. It got about 0.75" of rain Friday night, so I could not finish grading it.

 

[Complete Turf Care]

Here is a time lapse video of laser grading. It rained about 3/4" on this field a few hours earlier. I was able to get it close to finished, but it was just a bit too sticky to make it really slick.

 

[EddieWalker]

I bet a good rain storm can really mess everything up. Especially when you can finish the job!!

 

[Complete Turf Care]

I bet a good rain storm can really mess everything up. Especially when you can finish the job!!

You are correct, however, I really wanted a good rain on this field. It was so dry and dusty that I was blowing out my air filters twice a day. And I had to wash my AC radiator at least twice a day.

Also, although we removed most of the grass before tilling, there is still lots of bermuda roots in the soil, which makes it hard to move the soil around with the blade.

This rain will help the bermuda to decay quicker and make it easier to put the final grade on it.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

You are correct, however, I really wanted a good rain on this field. It was so dry and dusty that I was blowing out my air filters twice a day. And I had to wash my AC radiator at least twice a day.

Also, although we removed most of the grass before tilling, there is still lots of bermuda roots in the soil, which makes it hard to move the soil around with the blade.

This rain will help the bermuda to decay quicker and make it easier to put the final grade on it.

Seems like just a little grass , trash, weeds or whatever makes finish grading dirt problematic, especially so in what you are trying to accomplish I imagine.

 

[EddieWalker]

Are you in the path of Beryl? We got an inch last night from one of the outer bands, and we're waiting for it to start raining here any minute.

 

[dodge man]

How is this for machine grading? The lath is home plate. In this case the plans had changed before construction began but they used the old computer model. I swear some contractors never crack open the plans. That’s my coworker taking a shot with the gps. The advantage of seniority, he got to put on the rubber boots.

 

[EddieWalker]

Will you dig out all the mud and put in dry dirt? When I worked construction back in the 80's, they would make massive piles of the muddy dirt, then bring in dry dirt and mix it with a front end loader. This could go on all day, or all week!!!

 

[Complete Turf Care]

This about a 1 hour time lapse of the baseball field we are working on. Looks like it drained off very quickly, which is what we want. This is rain from Hurricane Beryl today.

 

[EddieWalker]

No erosion. My fear is always in how big the ruts are going to be from all the water washing the dirt away.

 

[Complete Turf Care]

Went help another contractor laser grade a softball infield to prepare for new fake grass.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

Went help another contractor laser grade a softball infield to prepare for new fake grass.
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I imagine he was glad to have you, anytime you can get someone with specialized equipment and skill sets it helps you improve your own skill sets by learning from what they know.