Photos by Tom Campbell

Huge strips of sod, trucked in from a farm in Maryland, were pieced together like a giant jigsaw puzzle at Ross-Ade Stadium this summer. Water and Mother Nature did the rest to help prepare the new surface for Purdue's 2006 home football schedule.

After four consecutive football games in September, the new grass surface in Ross-Ade Stadium looks even better than it did on the day it was transplanted this spring.

In May, the Kentucky bluegrass in the stadium and the south football practice facility was scraped off and replaced with a new variety of Bermuda grass, which can survive the cold winters in the northern states.

The new grass is the fulfillment of a goal first espoused by the late Purdue Department of Agronomy faculty member W.H. "Bill" Daniel, for whom the university's turfgrass research and diagnostic center is named.

"Bill said in his turfgrass book that the best grass for a traffic area like a football field is Bermuda grass — if you can grow it," says Zac Reicher, agronomy professor and turfgrass specialist. "But until five or seven years ago, we couldn't grow it in Indiana, not even in Evansville."

Now, thanks to years of genetic research that led to the evolution of new grass varieties, the Boilermakers are playing on a new, cold-hardy, durable cultivar of Bermuda grass called Patriot.

"Bermuda grass is the pickup truck of the grass species," says Cale Bigelow, a 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. It's not the prettiest grass in the world, but it's extremely durable when it's actively growing.

"Professional athletic field managers like to manage Bermuda grass because it tolerates late summer/early fall sports use, including the intense traffic and movement players inflict on it."

Bigelow and others in the Purdue turf program expanded knowledge of Bermuda grass' advantages by studying three different Bermuda grass varieties. They challenged the grass, which grows best in summer months, with different fertilizers, Indiana winters and a modified turf-aerating machine set up to simulate the damage football players cause.

Bigelow set up test plots of Bermuda grass at the turfgrass research center. Certain Bermuda grass varieties and various treatments did well over three years at the West Lafayette facility, even when a turf aerating machine fitted with a custom plate bearing metal football cleats was used weekly to stomp and scuff up the grass.

Undergraduate and graduate students in the Department of Agronomy often operated the machine and monitored how the grass was holding up.

"It was valuable experience for them in running a field experiment," Reicher says.

The ball really started rolling last year when the playing surface in Ross-Ade Stadium suffered unusual damage. That's when Purdue Intercollegiate Athletics officials asked Purdue Agriculture agronomists for a turfgrass replacement recommendation. They also wanted to keep intact the Prescription Athletic Turf (PAT) system, which consists of sod laid over a sand-based layer and an underground system of pipes to either drain excess water from the field or to backflow and send water to the grass roots. Daniel developed PAT in 1971 to create a firm, dry, natural surface, and the system was installed in Ross-Ade in 1974.

Last fall, the bluegrass suffered severe damage when temperatures were close to 90 degrees in early October. If Bermuda grass had been in place then, it would have continued to grow in the unseasonably hot weather, Bigelow says. In addition, Bermuda grass produces both below- and above-surface stems that help hold sandy soil together and enable the grass to rapidly recover from damage.

"The grass on the fields can be kept shorter than in the past," Bigelow says. "Bermuda grass most likely will be maintained at about three-quarters of an inch, which helps a football team composed of fast runners."

One drawback with Bermuda grass is that it doesn't remain green late in the football season in central Indiana's climate. However, overseeding with perennial rye when Bermuda grass begins its winter dormancy can help keep the fields green and protect the turf from late-season football action, Bigelow says.

Contact Bigelow at cbigelow@purdue.edu