The center is dedicated to researching the performance and safety of natural and synthetic turf surfaces used on athletic fields. It represents the single largest athletic field research effort ever undertaken.
Along County Road 17 in the Tree Tops development in Winona, an invasive plant is devastating old-growth trees. The leafy vines of Oriental bittersweet snake their way up roots, wrap around trunks, and stretch until they cover the trees. The vines starve the trees of sunlight, and eventually the weight of the bittersweet plant topples the dying tree. It takes a year or two for the bittersweet plant to kill a tree that has lived for 50 years or more.
A dispute between bidders has led the town to seek a new round of bids for installing synthetic turf athletic fields at the high school. Peter Morin, chief of staff for Braintree Mayor Joseph Sullivan, said the deadline for completing the work will be Oct. 1. The difference between the two bids was $38,000, Morin said.
Weather, disease and a turfgrass mystery forced an 80-year old golf club to do something no golf course in this area has ever done. Starmount lost its greens in five days, keeping local superintendents and state turf pathologists up at night.
As a turfgrass breeder, I collect plants from old stands of grass, including older golf courses, pastures, meadows, and sportsfields, primarily to find those plants that have survived and prospered under various stresses. Rarely at these sites do you find a monoculture of one species of grass, unless considerable effort has been made with herbicides to maintain a pure stand.-By Dr. Leah Brilman.
Schools or private facilities that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to install synthetic turf fields often run the risk of wearing out their investment faster than it should. John Fisher hopes to cash in on the required maintenance.
A Braintree (MA) contractor filed an appeal with the Attorney General's office over the bidding process, saying a competitor had not met the criteria of a local law in time for its bid.