Managing Healthy Sports Fields

 

How green is the green industry? Well, never green enough for one of America’s foremost authorities on organic land care Paul Sachs. Over the past two decades Sachs has built a reputation as a major proponent for the turf management profession to shift away from its reliance on chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and through numerous journal articles, conference presentations and books has asked turf managers to constantly question their practices and bring about change. 

During his career Sachs has also produced a number of books and in 2005 the founder and owner of an organic manufacturing company in Vermont, USA published his fifth book – Managing Healthy Sports Fields: A Guide to Using Organic Materials for Low-Maintenance and Chemical-Free Playing Fields. This book followed up on the release three years earlier of Ecological Golf Course Management (see review in ATM Vol 5.5) which he co-authored with Richard Luff.

Many of the concepts in that earlier book are re-presented in this 2005 offering and Sachs continues to implore turf managers to question their current maintenance practices and encourage them to improve them. Rather than just saying this is what you should do, Sachs is acutely mindful of the practical implications and is quick to offer a variety of alternative methods to chemical treatments that effectively control a wide range of pests, weeds and diseases. Moreover, most of these alternative methods he claims can be relatively easily adapted to existing maintenance programmes.

As Sachs advocates in his introduction: “This book proposes to partially, or perhaps completely, liberate the modern turf manager from this chemical dependence by suggesting methods that don’t adversely affect the game or the appearance of the playing field, but nevertheless dramatically reduce the need for pesticides and other chemicals”. He goes on to say that the “information presented in this book does not constitute formula for every sports field” but rather the book “presents alternatives and information that will enable the turf manager to consider or even invent new ways of solving problems.”

Managing Healthy Sports Fields is worth the buy for Sachs’ introduction alone. Over three pages he describes what a futuristic turf management environment might well be like, one where all chemical use on turf is banned and where traditional aeration equipment has gone the way of the dinosaur and replaced instead by a machine emitting sonic pulses (now there’s an idea – no surface disruption!)

The book is presented in seven broad chapters with each delving into a raft of detailed components.
After examining the soil ecosystem in detail in his opening chapter, Sachs then embarks on addressing topics such as fertility, composting, analysis, pests and cultural practices before finishing off with a chapter titled ‘Simplicity versus stability’.

Sachs crams a lot of information into the 244 pages and in doing so has done away with aesthetics. Unfortunately all photos and graphics are black and white, but as with many turf books it’s the content which is of most importance for practitioners. The book is backed up by an extensive resource and bibliography section, while the conclusion of each chapter has a handy ‘Points to remember’ segment which summarises in bullet point form the main concepts and ideas presented in the chapter.

The AGCSA currently has a number of copies of Managing Healthy Sports Fields which can be shipped immediately. AGCSA members can pick up a copy for $99 (non-member price $115).