Best Practices

We do our very best to be good stewards of the soil. After all, we’re only caretakers for a while! The practices we use are paramount to producing a high quality piece of turf while being environmentally conscious at the same time. Soil health for our farm (and for everyone downstream) is always being considered. Everything we apply to our sod is done in a timely manner, with the correct equipment, and at the appropriate rate. Additionally, we go out of our way to eliminate runoff, conserve water, reduce soil compaction, and minimize inputs. Let’s check out some of our practices!

Drain Tile

Excessive water in the soil is detrimental to sod and soil health. If the water table (the level of the groundwater below the surface) is too high, microbial life can’t exist in the soil. Bluegrass roots will only grow down as deep as they need to in order to get water, so a high water table leads to a short, underdeveloped root structure. Drain tile allows an escape route for all this excess groundwater. We install our tile lines about 3 feet below the surface in a pattern that runs to one outlet for each field into our ditch system. This doesn’t “dry out” the soil by removing all the water, just the excess that couldn’t be absorbed by the bluegrass or held in the peat. Once the water table is 3 feet lower, the sod roots grow deeper and more widespread in search of water and other nutrients. This makes the bluegrass more drought tolerant during our summer heat waves and dry spells as well as having a stronger root system for our harvesting process. When we get rain, the soil is now able to absorb that rainfall instead of it sitting on the surface and evaporating or running off. Runoff carries soil, fertilizer, and chemicals directly into the waterway where it can pollute other ecosystems. Instead, water is absorbed and the soil can do it’s job, which is to filter contaminants from the water before it gets to the tile. This way, the sod gets a proper drink of water, fertilizer is absorbed by the plant, and we can get back into the field sooner to mow or harvest. Drain tile has probably been the single most important improvement we’ve made to the sod farm in decades.

Fertilizer

Kentucky Bluegrass needs regular feedings to perform at it’s best. It’s up to us to make sure that we’re getting the best possible use out of our applications. Regular fertilizations that maintain a healthy, lush lawn are the single best defense against issues like weeds. There are the big 3 macro-nutrients, nitrogen (N), phosphate (P), and potash (K), as well as micro-nutrients such as iron, calcium, zinc, manganese, and sulfur. We fertilize our sod in a couple different ways:

• Granular Fertilizer. This is generally how we apply our macros, N, P, and K. Those are the 3 numbers you see on fertilizer bags at the hardware store. The formulation, timing, and rate of our applications depends on time of year, what the sod needs at the time, and soil test results. Granules should be watered in so they can dissolve into the soil and be absorbed by bluegrass roots. We’ve been using quite a bit less granular fertilizer lately since it requires rainfall or irrigation to activate. If forecasted rain misses our farm we run the risk of wasting the fertilizer or even burning the grass if we can’t irrigate it quickly enough.

• Liquid Fertilizer. We apply both macros and micros with our liquid blend, which is a concentrated formula that we mix with water and apply with our sprayer. Liquid fertilizer does not need to be watered in to dissolve, it’s absorbed directly into the plant leaves and through the roots, which ensures that the sod took it all in. No residue that could runoff and no wasted product. It’s also more cost effective and requires very little input (8oz/acre).

Irrigation

By and large, we try to leave the task of watering up to Mother Nature, but she doesn’t always cooperate and we need to water the sod ourselves! Higher temps in the middle of summer dictate that we apply a bit more water to keep the sod healthy and the harvesting process less dusty. We have a high capacity well and a system of pipes to deliver water to any field on the farm. We only apply what the sod needs and do our best to make good use of our available water.

Tillage and Seeding

We begin prepping our fields to be seeded around mid August with the intention of having our seeding done by the first week of September. As with everything we do, weather plays a big part in the timing of our tillage and seeding. Our tillage is done with small tractors and implements which helps us reduce soil compaction as we don’t do any deep tillage, like ripping, in the peat soil. After tillage, we level the freshly worked up dirt and roll it flat. Then we seed in our bluegrass at 50#/acre. We have found this to be the optimum rate for bluegrass to get good coverage. There are 1.5 million bluegrass seeds per pound! In a perfect world, September marks the start of the rainy season so we want to have seed in the ground before the rains come. Once seed is planted it’s always nice to get it rained in. This ensures good seed-to-soil contact and can trigger germination. Bluegrass germinates anywhere from 7 to 21 days after planting and water can speed that up by quite a bit. Even morning dew is helpful. Planning our planting strategy can be tricky. Our sod grows and matures for about 18 months from seed to harvest, so when we decide how many acres to plant, we’re trying to predict market demand for 2 years in the future. If we think we’ll run short on sod in a season, we can push the bluegrass a bit harder with a higher seeding rate and/or a more aggressive fertilizer regimen. This is an added expense, however.

Mowing

Mowing the grass is likely the most repetitive and tedious task on the farm, but it’s a necessary one! Maintaining a uniform height is essential for root development and plant health, and it must be done on schedule. If the grass gets too tall between mowing then undue clippings can build up and smother the sod. We generally mow twice (sometimes three times) a week during the growing season to keep clippings small and the sod focusing on root growth instead. We don’t collect our clippings since they’re a great source of nitrogen (free fertilizer!) and also aid in the development of new peat compost. We use two types of mowers on our sod, a rotary mower and reel mowers. Rotary mowers require far less maintenance but use more fuel while reel mowers are extremely high maintenance and use less fuel. As long as we keep our blades sharp they both provide a good quality of cut.

Chemicals

Turfgrasses of all varieties will encounter problems at some point. Sometimes it’s an invasive weed. Sometimes, a pest. Sometimes, a fungus. Oftentimes, the issue is environmental. In any case, there is a solution, and we’re equipped to handle it. On the farm, our sod fields are under constant supervision. If a problem starts to crop up, no matter what it is, we are able to diagnose and treat the issue quickly. Some chemicals are preventative in nature and some are curative. In order to provide our customers a healthy, pest-free, weed-free lawn, it’s sometimes necessary to treat for problems before or as they arise. Rest assured that every chemical treatment we use at Anderson Sod Farm is a safe treatment, applied in a safe and effective manner by someone licensed to do so. Your health and safety is important to us, which is why we grow natural turfgrass sod in the first place. Feel free to reach out with any questions regarding our treatment processes.

Harvesting

Once our sod has reached it’s full maturity and the root canopy is dense enough, we can begin to harvest. Unlike most row crops that are harvested all at once at the end of their growing cycle, sod is harvested all season long. When sod is cut, rolled up, and stacked on pallets it has a relatively short “shelf life.” Bluegrass is constantly giving off oxygen and other respiration gasses, so once it’s been rolled up and stacked those gasses have nowhere to go. This generates heat and the sod starts to compost itself. We take a couple simple actions to try and avoid this as much as possible. First, we only cut fresh to order. Sod is never stockpiled in the barn; it goes straight from our fields to a customer jobsite with instructions to get it installed and watered as soon as possible. Second, we try to do most of our harvesting in the early morning when it’s still cool outside. This will buy some extra time for the sod before it starts to really heat up. The harvesting process is now automated, thanks to our AutoStack! The sod is cut out of the ground with reciprocating blades, rolled up by a ladder system on a conveyor belt, and transferred to a pallet 10 rolls at a time by a stacker head with spears that pick up the rolls. Every other layer is rotated 90 degrees and down pressure is applied while stacking to achieve a stable pallet. Then the pallets are either loaded onto our delivery trucks or brought up to the office for pickup orders.