Taking care of newly delivered turf
Don’t let newly delivered turf overheat
We thought it importnat to pass on some tips about keeping your cool. Not your cool, but your newly delivered turf cool.
What you need to know
• Heating of stacked turfgrass post harvest, causes rapid plant tissue deterioration
• Because of the way we have to stack the turf and the time it is sometimes in transit the load can become like a compost heap and can get very hot - which burns the grass
• Grass is most susceptible to this when ground and grass temperatures are high and fertilizer has been applied and the turf watered before lifting. Obviously we need to do both.
• Worse effected turf is that which has been grown on black soils (thankfully ours is sandy and light)
• It’s not exclusive to Inturf, every grower experiences these issues
What you need to do
Be prepared to lay the turf immediately and provide copious amounts of precipitation so that the entire turfgrass is saturated right through to the soil underneath.
If the turf is not going to be laid straight away, you need to de-palletise to allow more air movement and store in a cool and breezy location, bearing in mind every hour in hot weather the turf is left lying around will increase the chances of poor quality.
Brushing and over sowing will be needed if the turf has already started to deteriorate, together with the watering.