The school board is considering a contract for two field-maintenance visits in the 2011-12 school year. Each visit would include deep cleaning and fluffing up the matted-down fibers at a cost of about $9,000.
Fireants101.com provides tools to help school facility managers and turf professionals understand fire ant biology and control, prioritize treatment areas and calculate costs.
Browning shoots and needles, twisting and stunted shoots, especially near the tops of evergreen trees and shrubs, are signs that those plants may have injuries associated with the herbicide Imprelis.
When Consumer Reports first tested lawn mowers in 1957, we judged eight of the 30 rotary models Not Acceptable because they discharged clippings, rocks, and other objects high off the ground and even toward the operator's face. Mowers have become a lot safer since then, thanks to standard that became law in 1982. Now when our technicians test mowers they can concentrate on performance rather than ducking for cover.
The eight-wheeled transporter picks its way across the construction zone like an oversized Mars Rover. In its hydraulic clutches, a swamp white oak weighing 10 tons sways precariously with each turn and bump in the path.
Preseason pressure is already on for Vanderbilt sports turf manager Bill Randles. Workers from Sports Turf Solutions completed installing the rolls of 419 Bermuda grass sod Wednesday at Vanderbilt Stadium. Randles has 7 weeks to make sure the field is ready for the Commodores' Sept. 3 opener.
Driving along Edina's Metro Boulevard, the corporate properties roll primly by: Sculpted lawns, flower beds brimming with daylilies, marigolds and petunias, and the occasional little sign warning people to stay off the grass because herbicide has been applied. Then you come upon the new Edina Public Works building at W. 74th Street and Metro Boulevard. There's a neat strip of mowed grass between the road and the sidewalk, and then wildness: Brown spires of rye gone to seed, bold clumps of pink swamp milkweed, and a spidery yellow wildflower waving in the breeze. It's like finding a hippie in a crowd of bankers. And the bankers are not pleased.
Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio and athletic director Mark Hollis were given a piece of old turf from Spartan Stadium before the rest of the field was destroyed by last month's U2 concert. Sports turf manager Amy Fouty, overseeing installation of the new turf Tuesday, said another piece of the old turf eventually will be added to the new field. As for the turf she gave Dantonio and Hollis, she said they would have to continue watering it "and trim it with scissors."