Keep the natural grass. I also liked when the field was a different shade of green every 5 yards. I'm not sure what process they used to get the different shades, perhaps someone knows. Of course it wouldn't be Tiger Stadium without the field being numbered every 5 yards.
They painted the green stripes on. But the turf was not healthy enough to do so this year. Paint hurts the grass.
thats the truth! we've been spraying round up and pre-emergents on the "yard" in nola for the last three years and that crap wont go away!!!
Considering Les tried to get synthetic installed when he first got here, and it didn't work, I'm not sure its going to be done now.
The stripes are from mowing the grass in different directions. The grass blade is laid down and light reflects off of it differently. Also, green turf paint does not affect turf it will actually help attract heat.
Nope, they use paint. Paint starves grass from sunlight. The field managers have said that the painted endzones are in the worst condition because they get the most paint.
I thought that might be the case. I never really noticed if by the end of the game the middle of the field lost some of the color contrast, but it seems like it would. With so much traffic, at least some of the blades of grass should be bent in a different direction as the game proceeds. I think traditions should be kept as much as possible in college football. I like being able to glance at a television and know in an instant who is playing and where because of these traditions, whether it be the hedges at Georgia, our five yard numbering system, etc. With the pros changing stadiums and/or sometimes cities, with free agency where players swap allegiances yearly, tradition gives college football something special and sets it apart.
I have trouble believing they use paint to color the fields when every baseball, football field, and golf course obtain their stripes from mowing patterns. They can spray iron to help darken the dark stripes. Paint does not starve grass from sunlight, if it did the grass would completely die within a week. Grass uses blue and red wavelengths of sunlight to photosynthesis and green is reflected back, hence the color. The endzones are purple which means most of the blue light is reflected away causing the endzones to suffer. It still goes back to you can't sprig a field which is starved of sunlight from the upperdecks and then put a team on the field before the sprigs have healed. Grass is a living thing, you can't completely beat the hell out of it and expect it to grow well.
