Dr Scott Ebdon, turf management professor at the University of Massachusetts has begun a research project on grass tennis courts. I will be supplying frequent updates with details on this multi year project. The Longwood grounds team will be helping out where we can and last Friday's assistance can be seen below.
Four singles courts are being seeded with different grass species, blends and cultivars. They will be maintained just like LCC's courts - mowed the same, same fertility and pest protection, with real and simulated play. Which ones will wear best? Dr Ebdon will find out.
The four courts were carefully seeded in 32 randomized sections (the cage keeps the seed in each section) with four sections of Longwood Poa annua for comparison. We brought out 20 trash barrels of aeration plugs and soil from our courts - you can see the LCC crew spreading them in the grids.
This is a very exciting project for turf and grass court managers! Lots of valuable information should come out of this - the first ever grass tennis research in the US.
2 comments:
Very interesting .. does this mean road trips for the lads out west to follow the developments of the courts?
Sounds like an opportunity for hi (or lo) jinks - methinks.
I love the cage Griff is seeding in! I never knew that was how it was done.
-Great post!
-Tim
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