What Off-Season Turf Field Maintenance is Needed?

An athlete’s work doesn’t end when games end, the activities during the off-season are just as important as during the regular season. The same goes for any synthetic turf field. Whether you have a multi-purpose or single sport focused surface like a baseball or a softball field, your synthetic turf field will require a few pieces of maintenance and upkeep during the down time to ensure the surface is prepared for action when the season commences.

5 Off-Season Turf Field Maintenance Tasks You should Perform

1. Leaf & Debris Removal

• Removing debris and leaves off of your field is important during the season to keep it clean and performing the way it should for your athletes. It is just as vital that your turf field be uncluttered when not in use. Build-up of leaves and trash, if left unattended, can impact your field’s drainage or make-up and create further issues once activities resume.
• To eliminate leaves or other light debris, you can utilize a leaf blower to speed up the process. The key when using a blower on the artificial turf field is not to point it directly down at your surface, but rather at an angle of about 45 degrees. If you’re not careful, the force of the direct air can displace infill and lead to additional maintenance needed.

2. Check & Add Infill

• Even when practices and games wrap-up for the season, if your synthetic turf field is open to the public, it will likely still see some action from dedicated athletes continuing to perfect their skills. While it won’t experience as much activity, it remains an essential maintenance practice to check high-traffic areas and add infill, as needed.
• Locations like soccer field penalty kicks and baseball field batter’s boxes are hot spots, in-season or not, and we recommend reviewing these areas every couple of weeks to confirm they haven’t experienced infill displacement. Replace the infill, if it has. This will prevent surprises when activities resume and emergency service is needed.

3. Schedule Annual Deep Clean Visit

• Your artificial turf field having down time provides a great opportunity to schedule your annual deep clean visit, if it has not been conducted already. These services can be completed as long as the temperatures are above freezing and dry. Handling the deep clean service in the off-season allows your turf field to be ready for the first practice.

4. Continue Grooming

• During the peak season, we recommend a synthetic turf field be groomed once for every 40 hours of activity, which will usually equate to every two weeks.
• The 40 hour recommendation remains intact in the off-season but the activity time won’t add up as nearly as quick.
• Be sure to continue brushing your field and checking for potential repairs/issues.

5. Snow Removal

• It’s important to know what is allowed with snow removal from your synthetic turf versus what could harm the surface or the future performance of the field.
• We recommend contacting our expert team of Turf Care Experts to ensure you have the correct equipment and best practices ready to remove the snow.
• The key is to remove the top layer of snow or ice, and allow what is closest to the turf melt on its own. The goal is as little interaction with the equipment and the fibers as possible!
• You can get more of our tips and tricks via our Snow Removal Blog.

If you and your team need to establish a plan for taking care of your synthetic turf field in the off-season, schedule a quick meeting with our Turf Care Experts to put together the best program for your field.