The Hard Feild

Now that 4-H is over successfully I finally had time to strap on the pads again! Its been a long time since I've played and it felt great to be on the field again.  Unless of course I was the one actually on the field after a play.  Our field is rock hard! I'm sure it is the hardest field in the league or any league for that matter.   Now the pros they get the fancy astroturf where the grass is fake and there are tiny bits of rubber to keep it somewhat soft.  But our school is nowhere near having a small portion of the money to pay for such a field so how can we get a softer field?  Well whenever I'm walking out in the field during silaging or harvest the ground always seems rather soft, so what all do farmers do to keep their soil soft?  Well the most natural way is simply to have good soil.  Good rich black soil will naturally stay softer then drier soil that is not as rich.  Currently there is also a debate about whether or not using the zero till method actually keeps the soil softer and is more porous.  They argue that tilling the land actually makes it harder in the end because your taking the air out of the soil and packing the dirt tighter.  They're belief that the zero till method makes the soil more porous is that the root is the same size as the stem, when you harvest the crop and leave the roots in the soil they then decay leaving an air pocket.  This theory is still being debated and likely will be for quite sometime.  One way that farmers keep they're pastureland "soft" is by aerating it. this allows the air to get into the soil easier giving it more of a cushion.  The natural way to keep pastureland soft is based on rainfall.  the more moist the soil the softer it will be.  Based on what farmers do to keep their land soft to make our football field softer would be to aerate it and water it lots.  If all the grass wasn't so ruined from all the kids playing on it all the time we could fertilize it and cut it lots creating a layer of thatch or dead grass sitting of the ground.  This would help to act as a cushion.  So if our school had the money to afford these things then I would imagine that some of them would be done.  But instead I will just have to be sure that when I have the ball I don't get tackled and the rest of the time I make sure that the other team is always pulling themselves up off of our rock hard field. 

Until next time,

Luke