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Purdue University's Boilermakers have a new and improved football field this season, thanks to Purdue Agriculture turf experts.
Last year, when the playing surface in Ross-Ade Stadium seemed unusually damaged, Purdue Intercollegiate Athletics asked Purdue Agriculture agronomists to recommend a replacement for the old bluegrass. The new turf was installed over the summer, and the Boilermakers kicked off the season this fall on a new, cold-hardy, durable Bermuda grass.
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When the Purdue University Boilermakers hit the gridiron last fall, Ross-Ade Stadium was sporting new turf. The old playing surface was removed last summer to make way for a new Bermuda grass sod developed by Purdue Agriculture agronomists. |
"Bermuda grass is the pickup truck of the grass species," says Cale Bigelow, Purdue agronomist and turf expert. "If you buy a pickup truck, it wants to be driven, and it wants to be used. Bermuda grass is the same way. It wants to be beat up, and it wants to take the load."
Bigelow and his colleagues in the turf program spent more than three years studying three different Bermuda varieties. They tested the grass with different fertility treatments, subjected it to Indiana winters and set up a modified turf-aerating machine to simulate the type of damage caused by football players.
Bigelow also wanted to help organizations that don't have the management resources of a Division I sports program, but do have athletic fields frequently used by youngsters and adults. "My biggest concern was how I could help some of the turf managers at high schools, smaller colleges and community facilities where the fields receive very intense traffic through the summer and the fall," Bigelow says. And help he did.
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