The grass isn’t always greener at the Sports and Adventure Complex.
Field 3 at the facility on River Road has been out of commission all semester after a project aimed to install a new type of grass failed. Members of the UREC met with representatives from the AgCenter, the department in charge of the operation, in August and decided to close the field.
“The determination was we would just take it offline and continue to nurture it and bring it along at its pace in order for us to be confident going forward,” said Brad Wilson, UREC associate director of operations and project management.
The AgCenter attempted to put in Celebration grass, a hybrid Bermuda grass similar to what’s in Tiger Stadium, Wilson said. The crew successfully installed the grass at a different SAC field last year, but environmental and soil issues prevented the turf on field 3 from growing.
“Sometimes weather works against you,” said Jeff Beasley, an associate professor with the AgCenter and the person in charge of the SAC project. “It can slow the process down a little bit. That’s what happened in this case. We have a good base there. Next year, the field will grow in perfectly.”
The closed field has forced UREC to rearrange practice schedules for the various club sports. According to June No, general manager of the men’s soccer club, the UREC originally slated the work for completion in October, but complimented UREC personnel on reworking practice times.
“It would have been great if things were fixed much faster,” No said. “That is something out of our control, and all we can do is wait until the field is back ready to be used.”
Beasley and Wilson both expect the field to become operational by the spring semester, and Beasley said 75 to 80 percent of the field has shown growth.
Beasley said his team will apply about a quarter-inch of sand to the field to encourage growth and install ryegrass in the winter, while the Bermuda grass lies dormant. The team will remove the ryegrass and regrow the Bermuda in the spring when temperatures rise.
Beasley said the quality of other SAC fields has forced his crew to pay special attention to this project.
“As expectations increase, it takes more work to meet those expectations,” Beasley said. “You have to remember this is a biological system. It takes time for things to grow in.”
Wilson said UREC didn’t incur any charges replacing the grass because the operation was part of a “Zero Sum Project” with the AgCenter. UREC provides AgCenter graduate assistants the opportunity to earn research and study hours in a real-life environment, Wilson said.
“It gives them a natural playing venue to work, not just some plot in the middle of a field,” Wilson said. “It gives them statistics on how it performs under stress and how it performs with traffic.”
The project’s lack of success hasn’t strained UREC’s relationship with the AgCenter, Wilson said.
“We’re still very much working with the AgCenter on this project,” Wilson said. “They’ve been great partners with us. They were just as stumped as were.”
 
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Contact Hunter Paniagua at [email protected]