A Day at Purdue - Soccer Complex

Another post on my visit to Purdue last week. After visiting the Daniel Center, I headed over to the soccer complex with Brian Bornino. The soccer field we walked was the varsity field. The field consists of Patriot and Riviera bermuda grass. Why the two cultivars? Simply, there was winter kill on part of the field a couple of years ago and the decision was made to seed Riviera instead of sprigging Patriot bermuda. Here are a couple of photos:

As you can see, the field looks great for early June. There are a few areas where spring dead spot has caused some damage, but this field will be ready for play by August 1, 2011, by simply implementing an aggressive fertilizer program.

The next photo shows the use of crumb rubber in the goal mouth area. As research has shown, the use of crumb rubber assists in reducing wear. An added benefit for bermuda, the crumb rubber causes the surface to become warmer, thus the bermuda will fill in quicker. In fact, this area was bare seven days ago!

Finally, a few of you may be scratching your head about mixing cultivars of bermuda grass. For some reason, this is not an issue on the cooler cultivars. Can you tell the difference between the Patriot and the Riviera? When the field is mowed for competition, there is no issue with the two cultivars.

Look for a Purdue football post tomorrow.

To learn more about Purdue soccer, click HERE.

Go to j-dturf.com to learn more about J&D Turf.

Play on!
--Jamie