ASSESSING TRAFFIC TOLERANCE AND RECOVERY IN SPORTS TURFGRASS

Faishal Khan

Turfgrasses are monocot species used on sports fields, golf courses and home lawns for ecological, functional and aesthetic benefits. On sports fields, the surface playability and aesthetic appearance deteriorate because of traffic stress applied by humans and vehicles. This often exceeds the financial capabilities of sports field managers to manage natural sports fields and increases reliance on artificial turfgrass. Artificial surfaces raise concerns regarding environment impact and athlete safety. We hypothesize that gibberellic acid promoting and growth retarding regulators might help in improving traffic tolerance and recovery of turfgrasses. The first chapter includes the existing knowledge about the turfgrass systems, traffic tolerance, plant growth regulators in turfgrass management and sports field research.The first study, in which trinexapac-ethyl, growth inhibitor, was applied before initiating traffic and gibberellic acid3, growth promoter, was applied post-traffic on ‘Midnight’ Kentucky bluegrass. The second study included three different turfgrass stands: pure Kentucky bluegrass, mixture of Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass and pure rhizomatous tall fescue stands. The turfgrass stands were treated with gibberellic acid3, paclobutrazol and trinexapac-ethyl before and after traffic treatments. In both studies, traffic was simulated with a Cady traffic simulator to mimic 15 national football games, with three games per week over five weeks during the fall of 2024 and 2025. Turfgrass performance was assessed using normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), excess green (ExG), shear strength (SS) and surface hardness (SH). Data were collected at different time points throughout the experiment. Results from both studies indicated, pre-traffic application of plant growth regulators had no effect on maintaining turfgrass performance after traffic treatments. In contrast, post-traffic application of gibberellic acid3 improved NDVI and ExG across turfgrass stands and years, indicating enhanced overall plant health. Traffic treatments consistently reduced NDVI, ExG, and SS, while increasing SH, reflecting mechanical degradation of the turfgrass surface. Overall, gibberellic acid3 showed the greatest potential to alleviate post-traffic stress, highlighting the importance of targeted PGR selection. However, due to negative impacts of GA3 such as increased shoot growth and light green color, these treatments are not recommended for practical use.

ASSESSING TRAFFIC TOLERANCE AND RECOVERY IN SPORTS TURFGRASS

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