Thursday, August 27, 2015

Fall Renovations - Stop Layering Infield Mixes!

As fall baseball and softball infield renovation season begins, a quick reminder to STOP layering infield mixes.........

Another visit to a troublesome infield, another layered infield mix.

The issue:
"My infield was ok, I had a contractor bring in new material and laser grade my infield.  Since then it has been a mess.  Cannot take rains events, chips out and is almost unplayable when dry."

I took a shovel and dug a hole, here is what was found:


As you can see the infield mix was simply placed over the infield and not tilled/incorporated into the existing infield mix.

The solution:
The quickest fix would be to simply till and laser grade the material.  After that activity, test the material to determine what type of amendment/engineered soil is necessary to "balance out" the sand/silt/clay content of the mix.

Click HERE to see how to add new infield mix to an existing infield mix.
Click HERE to learn more about what makes up an infield mix

Be careful when pricing out renovations.  Not blending a profile will make the process quicker and the grading cheaper, but will leave an infield mix in worse condition that before the work took place.

What should a blended column look like?

Photo Credit - Wes Ganobcik - Columbus Clippers

Note - The top 3-4 inches of the profile is blended together completely.  If using an engineered soil, the top 3-4 inches of an infield mix is the critical material.  This photo as shows how you can amend an infield with removing any infield mix.

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

Play on!
--Jamie
@JamieMehringer

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