Creating a Turf Field Maintenance Schedule

Eye-catching fields only remain that way with a consistent and thorough maintenance plan! With routine care, your facility stands to benefit from enhanced surface performance, lasting style, and extended turf longevity. Fortunately, artificial turf is both easy and affordable to maintain, especially when compared to the complex and costly protocols required to care for natural grass fields. 

To keep your artificial turf surfaces in pristine condition, key maintenance considerations include:

• Field Cleaning & Debris Removal
• Field Grooming 
• Infill Decompaction 
• Infill Depth Testing
• Infill Replenishment
• Timely Turf Repair & Replacement

Depending on factors like frequency of field use, surface type, and other variables like climate, your exact maintenance timeline may differ from these general recommendations.  

To bring out the best in your field’s performance, style, and lifespan, here’s how our turf maintenance company approaches professional upkeep.

Weekly/Bi-Weekly Maintenance Steps

Each week, walk the field and inspect for surface damage like lifting turf, seam separation, excessive wear, and any other surface abnormalities. While inspecting the field, collect any visible trash, debris, and other foreign objects that might cause a player injury or damage to the turf materials.

In addition to light cleanup, your team can use an approved turf brush to gently level infill and prevent inconsistent wear patterns (For complete grooming, see the monthly recommendation below). For example, you may notice a slight dip in areas of the field that experience the heaviest foot traffic. Simply raking piled or displaced infill back into place is an easy way to improve player safety and prevent premature damage to the underlying layers. 

Monthly Upkeep Recommendations

While it’s possible to rake the entire field to realign fibers and distribute infill manually, our field and tennis court maintenance companies strongly recommend professional grooming services every 80-200 hours of field use. Our state-of-the-art grooming machines ensure uniform fiber realignment and infill distribution, while simultaneously gathering litter and loose dirt without risking damage to the valuable turf. 

Around the perimeter, be on the lookout for invasive growth and other edge issues such as potholes. Remove visible weeds, use an environmentally-friendly spray to minimize regrowth, and refill/repair any terrain problems around the edge to restore surface instability and protect the turf edges. 

While our grooming team is on-site, we can also assist with deeper cleaning processes. We utilize the SMG SportChamp for numerous applications, and this machine shines in all aspects of field cleaning. Our like-new field cleaning services can help you: 

• Eliminate field contaminants
• Extract deeply embedded debris & dirt
• Restore the texture & performance of turf
• Enhance the field aesthetic 
• Extend the lifespan of your turf system

Annual Care Planning

If you follow the steps above, your annual upkeep needs will be minimal. On an annual basis, our sports field contractors recommend a professional inspection. During our multi-point inspections, we analyze crucial field parameters like fiber alignment, infill levels and compaction, material integrity, drainage functionality, and other key elements related to your specific facility requirements. 

Most commonly, our annual facility improvement services involve: 

• Infill depth testing & surface analysis: We evaluate turf quality and determine if your field could benefit from infill decompaction/replenishment. 

• Infill decompaction & replenishment: Areas of heavy use can often be restored to their like-new playability with an infill refresh.

• Field restriping & sectional repairs: As important as refreshing playable surface integrity, we are the go-to local experts when it comes to aesthetic updates. Ask our pros about a new color of turf or professional striping if you want to accommodate other sports or integrate a vivid team logo. 

• Additional safety features: After updating your field’s fundamentals, many of our best field projects include customized sport netting solutions, new lighting designs, and other modernized field features to maximize facility safety at every practice and game. 

Need step-by-step guidance to optimize your facility’s upkeep strategies? As one of the best turf and running track repair companies, we are happy to help you calibrate your maintenance plan for success.