Open Access613 The Methodological Study of Under-soil Heating System (USHS) for Warm-season Grass
Author(s) -
Takashi Miwa,
Hisakazu Kihara,
Hideaki Tonogi
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
hortscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.518
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 2327-9834
pISSN - 0018-5345
DOI - 10.21273/hortsci.34.3.553b
Subject(s) - dormancy , environmental science , growing season , agricultural engineering , agronomy , biology , engineering , germination
Recently, full-green turf on sports fields in the winter is highly desirable. The negative factor for warm-season grass pitch is its winter dormancy. Winter overseeding (WOS) is one successful method to make turf seem green. However, maintenance cost for WOS turf is relatively expensive and brings some difficulties. Undersoil heating (USH) has been used for cool-season grass pitch or warm-season grass pitch to make turf green in winter. Our objectives were 1) to confirm USH effectiveness for warm-season grass, 2) to make the specified system itself, and 3) to estimate the approximate heat demand. The results indicate that USH can make warm-season grass green and maintain much higher turf quality even in severe winter conditions. Weed invasion, pests, and diseases levels are quite low during the test period. The characteristics needed to create the system include heating pipe spacing and depth, initial media temperature, and required soil temperature. In addition, USH needs a plastic cover for insulation that is light and that air and water can penetrate. Compared with WOS, USH can reduce maintenance fees and procedures, such as preparation for WOS in a fall and transition into spring. Thus, UHS can prolong total playing period. Moreover, it is easy to maintain the higher turf quality and lower maintenance cost than WOS. In the future, we should concentrate on creating more concrete maintenance program for this method.