athletic fields

[dbroome]

i am about to bid athletic fields which consists of 850,000
sq ft of turf. the bid will be aeration 2x per year, fert. 2x per year, spray twice/year and overseed in fall w/ rye. (not bidding the cutting) anyone have any pricing guidelines on an account this large?

[lawrence stone]

Fertilize athletic fields two times a year?
You have got to be kidding.
Who wrote those specs?

[John DiMartino]

Athetic fields need to be grown a lot to compensate for high wear,2X wont cut it.If you do it this way,the field will deteriorate unless play is kept to a bare minimum.

[bdemir]

Not all athletic fields are high traffic and not all of them are well maintained. When i was a youngan and played soccer i remembered many muddy spots and ruts and bare spots all over the fields that i have played on. They just dont seem to take care of some of them like they do others. Just my observation.

[turfman99]

I got to agree with stone on this one. That's not athletic field care. Are they gonna play soccer on them?? You'll be a goat if those are sccoer or football fields.

We take care of a comparable amount of fields.

We reel cut two times per week.
We aerate at least 6 times per year.
We top dress one to two times per year.
We fertilize every six weeks, 9 months out of the year.

And these fields still get the hell beat out of them.

Takes me 1.5 hours to aerate a football field with a 48 inch aerator. Takes me about 2 hours total to fertilize with my Sand Pro and # 100 spreader, including loading fert and equipment at shop.

Reconsider the specs, if they are holding you out with unrealstic expectations.

[John DiMartino]

Turfman,I maintain my fairways the same as most high traffic athletic fields.The only thing i do different than you is I do not aerate 6X,only 3 at most.My fairways arent the best,but they arent the worst either.

[cantoo]

We cut three soccer fields, we don't do the fertilize but it is only done twice per year. They are only used a few times per week but get in tuff enough shape. I am putting in a price to fertilize them myself next year but I am pretty sure they won't go for it. This was our first year cutting and you can already see the difference from last year. I am making enough on the job that I might do one of the three fields just to show them what they could look like.
Not everyone pays for perfect fields, this is typical of smaller towns here.

[lawrence stone]

turfman wrote:

>Takes me about 2 hours total to fertilize with my Sand Pro and # 100 spreader, including loading fert and equipment at shop.


That's poor production. I pushed a lesco spreader and put 4 bags (32-5-7 75% urea)down in 75 min. on a baseball field (330 x330=109k)today. It was easier to grab the push spreader to go and drop the deck and mount a jrco spreader to a walkbehind for I only did one baseball and oen softball field.

[accuratelawn]

For you guys that care for soccer fields and other ball fields. I am going to bid some this winter. Can you give some pointers? How best to present? I plan on offering full service.

[turfman99]

I should clarify myself, I also did an adjacent basball field and about 10,000 sf of lawn at the school also. Includes 10 mile round trip to the site.

Takes me about 30 seconds to mount the spreader on my Sand Pro. Never walk when you can ride. 60 seconds if I have to remove the 25 gallon spray tank and boom.

We go out and do a lot of sites at one time with this process. I could use the three point for the tractor, but find it takes more time to fill the damn thing than it does to fertilize , and load and unload the larger unit versus the Sand Pro.

[dbroome]

hey guys, these are low use fields in south ga, and soccer does not exist down here. 4 softball fields that see limited play, and six baseball fields (also limited). there may be 3 months of use per year. as for the specs, these are rural city funded facilities maintained by people that do not have a clue what they are doing (cons on a mower). A minimum amount of money is going to be spent on upkeep. By the way, i have a horticulture degree from the university of Ga so i know what should be done, the problem is they are not going to fork out the dough. I would just like to have some bidding advise if anyone can help. thanks

[lawrence stone]

You have got to be kidding AGAIN!!

How do we know what type of material and amount of N that the contract requires?

How do we know what type of application equipment you have?

How do we know what gross profit you need?

How do we know what your overhead and labor production per hour is?

How do we know if the fields are full of weed at this time?


[Edited by lawrence stone on 11-30-2000 at 04:17 PM]

[dylan]

In my area, soccor and ball fields are mowed by the township. They do it every few weeks with a 50hp tractor and a pto flail mower. They are not fertilized ... ever.
Trimming is done once, half way through the summmer. The township once asked for bids on a park. They only wanted it mowed 6 times over 7 months. Some guy with a 12hp lawn tractor drives around it all day trying to cut down the hay field.

[cantoo]

Dylan, that's the way it is done here too. This is the first year they have had a commercial mower ( our Walkers ) on the properties. Next year they have asked us to give them a price for all the Town property. Some properties, the only fertilizer they get is what falls off the kids boots after they do the chores.

Stone, I mounted a 1" steel tube on the frame of the Toro wbh I have and my electric spreader slides right over it. Alligator clips onto the wires from the engine and it's ready to spread fertilizer. I don't have to take the deck off, I just make sure to wash it clean and throw some oil on it with the undercoating gun when I am done for the day. If it isn't wet the back pack blower will clean it up good too..

KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid