(soft music) - [Casey] Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

We are headed out to the baseball park to see all the horticulture action that occurs before a game.

(classical music playing) David Hillock discusses herbicides.

(classical music playing) And we are staking and weaving our tomatoes at the OSU Student Farm.

(classical music playing) Underwriting assistance for our program is provided by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, helping to keep Oklahoma Green and growing.

Oklahoma Gardening is also a proud partner with Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.

Shape Your Future provides resources for Oklahomans to make the healthy choice the easy choice.

I love sharing with you guys the cool things that plants can do.

(classical music playing) We're back here at the Student Farm.

I wanna share with you a tropical plant that you might find in some Oklahoma landscapes.

It's important to know which plants we are dealing with so that we can continue to maintain them successfully for years to come.

Today we are at the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark and joining me is Jeff Jackson who is the head groundskeeper, and today we're gonna learn a little bit about what it means to be a groundskeeper.

Jeff, thank you so much for having us down here today.

- Oh, thank you very much for being here.

- Yeah, so you are a horticulture OSU alum, right?

- Yes, I am.

- You found yourself in an amazing office to work in.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Tell us a little bit about what it means to maintain the grounds.

I mean, we're in the middle of baseball season, so you're pretty busy, right?

- Yeah, about halfway through the season.

So far we've played 36 AAA baseball games, about 20 high school baseball games and a couple other special events that we've had on the field.

It's been a crazy weather pattern it seems.

Seems like it was kind of cool and rainy all up until about the last two weeks, month or so and the heat's kicked on pretty good.

- [Casey] Well, I just know how it is to maintain a garden.

I can't imagine having that many eyes looking at my work.

Tell me a little bit about, so baseball season goes from March to October, correct?

So how do you get it green in March?

- [Jeff] So this is a full Bermudagrass field.

We actually start in late December, early January.

We actually have, we've actually tried a little bit of a new system here, whereas you might see ryegrass overseed or things like that.

I've actually found it more beneficial to the Bermudagrass health to go full Bermudagrass.

So I actually use turf pigments, turf colorants, turf paints that have recently been released.

Really helps the grass absorb a lot of heat.

As you know, green absorbs a lot more than a white dormant Bermudagrass would be.

I'd also have a full field of turf grass growth blankets.

Those are permeable blankets that kind of act as like a greenhouse effect that can heat the soil temperature up at a good 5 to 10 degrees more than it would just naturally out on a non-covered surface.

- Okay, so you sort of camouflage it till it starts doing its own thing.

And you mentioned Bermudagrass.

What type of Bermudagrasses are you dealing with here?

They're not just your regular common grass.

- Yeah, so we've got some of the latest hybrid Bermudagrasses on the infield and foul territory.

We have the newest Oklahoma State Tahoma 31 Bermudagrass on the outfield.

We have a TifTuf hybrid Bermudagrass it was at the Tifton, Georgia.

- [Casey] And I know those need a lot more maintenance, of course you're giving that daily here using a real mower.

Tell us a little bit about what is that daily maintenance look like for this Bermudagrass?

- [Jeff] So we're mowing daily basically.

We mow with a walk behind real mower on the infield and foul territory just because those are a lot more high traffic.

We don't want like our big riding fairway mower, we don't want that kind of the traffic on the infield or foul territory.

So we're usually walk mowing those.

And we also collect the clippings on those areas.

The outfield, we're also mowing daily.

That's with our Toro 3575 fairway mower.

It mows the outfield.

We kind of have it as specific pattern.

We have the stripes where the ball tries not to snake.

So if you have a bunch of crisscrosses with a real mower and rollers on the back, the ball might snake.

So we try to have it out to all.

- What does that mean the ball might snake.

- So if you're an outfielder or you're an infielder, if it crosses the stripes intersect, the ball might move this way or this way.

So you want the ball to play as true to the outfielder or the infielder as possible.

- Okay, so it helps the ball player kind of predict where the ball's gonna be rolling.

- Yes, where it might roll or where even you might position a player, you might position him on a certain dark stripe or a light stripe.

- Okay, I never realized and it makes sense the way the grasses laying can actually influence the ball movement.

So obviously it's not just grass, you're also dealing with some different dirt or textures areas.

Tell me about those.

- So first I'll talk about what's underneath the actual grass is a little different than what might a homeowner might see.

- So we actually have, it's basically a USGA style putting green under this entire surface.

So we have an 18 inch collector drain that goes all around the entire field.

We have 15 four inch lateral lines that go across the field every 15 foot.

Above that we have four inches of pea gravel and then we have 10 inches of 928 engineered USGA sand blended with 8% peat moss.

Then you would have your sod on the top.

We have that under the grass just because we are playing so many games, you need the field to drain.

If we're dumping the tarps or something like that, you need the field to drain and be safe for the players usually within 30 to 45 minutes after we dump the tarp.

So the water needs to percolate and move down through the soil.

- So I would imagine you're irrigating a lot and that also helps with that drainage as well.

- Yes, so we actually have a water reclamation system that all the drains tie into from the field.

So we're actually reclaiming that water and pumping it and using it back out on the, through the irrigation surface.

So we're watering more deeply and infrequently just to try to get our roots to dry for that water and things like that.

You don't want 'em shallow where you're just kind of feeding the shallow roots.

You need the roots to drive down through the sand and things like that.

- Okay, all right, very good.

And so going back to like the warning track and the pitchers mound and all of that stuff.

Let's talk a little bit about some of that aggregate.

- Yeah, so the infield dirt portion is made up of an engineered infield mix called Dur Edge Professional Infield Mix.

It's actually mined out of Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania and is engineered and blended with the right amount of silt, the right amount of sand, coarse sand, fine sand, medium sand.

We have a six inch column of that infield mix on the infield surface.

It's one of the more professional infield mixes that you can have these days.

It really helps with water retention, but also water shedding.

And then we have Calcine Clay and expanded shell manufactured by Dur Edge as well.

Those are kind of top dressings, kind of helps for sliding, water retention.

If we have any rain games or things like that, the Calcine clay can absorb water a lot quicker, and (indistinct).

- But I know you're quick to cover it, right?

- Yeah, so the, the dirt portion of the, of the field is probably the most critical.

That's where the game is played the most.

If the dirt portion of the infield was to get too wet or unplayable or unsafe for the players, we'd have to postpone the game or potentially cancel the game and that loses a lot of revenue for the ballpark.

We play 150 games throughout the year, so it's hard with the team schedules, you know, to try to - [Interviewer] Reschedule.

- Reschedule games and things like that.

Plus all of our paying fans here, it's hard.

You know, it might be your only time to come out to the ballpark, so we're very cautious and very critical about keeping the infield dirt playable for all of our games.

- And so how do you, how do you manage that, those dirt areas?

Do you have to top dress that additionally or?

- Yeah, so hot days like this, we're using more of the expanded shale that holds the water.

We're actually usually putting standing water after the games or on hot days like this and the, it'll just absorb and it actually makes the dirt play a lot better.

It would almost turn into concrete if we didn't water it and things like that.

You know, you don't want hard hit balls taking hops or hitting players that could chip a tooth or things like that.

You know, you got a prize prospect or shortstop here, you don't want 'em chipping a tooth where you might be out.

Sliding is a big issue, you know, you're sliding into second base or third base, you don't want anyone hurting or tearing up a knee or things like that.

So it's real critical just to try to keep it on that fine line of, you know, it's wet enough that it performs the way we need it to, but not too wet where, where it can pool.

- That's really fascinating.

Is there a certain moisture or is it more just experience and a field test that you know?

- There is moisture meters that you can use.

A lot of it just goes from experience and what you're kind of see.

Sometimes if you have a moisture meter, you're trying to get to a certain number and then that's the number that you'd like to play off of.

- Okay.

- It just kind of varies.

You know, in Oklahoma it can be really windy and sunny or it can be sunny and humid, so you just kind of gotta, or you know, it might be cloudy a different day so you can't put as much water on it.

So you just, it's very fine line that, you know, you're not looking at just the next day but you're looking at days ahead and things like that.

- Right, so you're always watching the weather for us.

With so much work that goes into this, I know, you know, you as a horticulture major obviously love this, but why does somebody put all this effort versus just synthetic?

- You know, coming from Oklahoma State, you know, developing all the Bermuda grasses and things like that, it's really fun to get to experience and showcase those as well here.

Also just for safety of players, you know.

It's extremely hot here in Oklahoma during the summer months with players taking batting practice or practice like during the heat of the day, you know, the four to five o'clock just before the games, it could be very detrimental to player health and player safety if we were playing for a synthetic surface down here.

- Absolutely.

And it's nice and cushioning actually, so I imagine that helps them when they're running or sliding that maybe it gives a little bit more too.

- Yeah, so, you know, some standardization of other sports, you might have a gmax test where the softness or a shear test where actually the, where you can see the grass give way or things like that where a synthetic surface it might not be as forgiving and things like that.

So it is very critical to have that softness and that ability for the grass to give way for players, you know, joints or ligaments or things like that, or bones or just playing on a.

- [Jeff] A soft surface is key.

- Well, Jeff, you and your team are doing an excellent job and me, and I know thousands of other appreciate the work that you're doing on a daily, weekly basis out here.

Thank you so much for the influence that horticulture has on the game.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- Thanks.

(soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) - Managing weeds in our gardens and landscape is one of our biggest chores, something that we're always dealing with.

And ideally it would be great if, you know, we can control them by hand, by hand removal, digging 'em up or using mulches, mulches help quite a bit and help reducing a lot of the weeds in our landscape.

However, many times we do need to reach for some herbicides, but the problem is when we go into the garden centers, there's a lot to choose from and it can get really confusing.

So, today I want to just kind of cover a few basics and in hopes to help you choose the right herbicide when you're trying to control weeds in the garden.

So when you go in, you'll see all kinds of products, and oftentimes we see products with the same name.

So, for example, here we have three different Roundup products.

Now, initially Roundup was a product that contained just glyphosate, which is a very common herbicide, and one that's been in the news a lot lately because of the questions and how safe it is.

And now it's being removed from the market.

Glyphosate will be removed from the home, lawn and garden product line.

But now you see all kinds of products that have Roundup labeled on them.

So that has become a brand name, just like Ortho's, Weed B Gon and GroundClear.

And we have Preen and a number of other manufactured products that have these brand names, but there's multiple products within those brands and so it gets really confusing.

So you need to make sure that you read and follow the label directions carefully.

In general, we have weed killers that are labeled for use in lawns, so they're safe to use in lawns to control broadleaf weeds and sometimes control certain grassy weeds and broadleaf weeds.

We have products that are labeled for non crop areas, you're just trying to control all the vegetation.

Some of 'em are labeled as pre-emergence herbicides, which means they have to be applied prior to the weed seeds to get good control while others are post emergent control.

And so there's lots of different variations in the different types of herbicides that are on the shelves.

So it's very important to, even though these labels are very catchy, and help kind of guide you into maybe the overall broad spectrum of what that product will do, it's important to read the labels very carefully.

So let's take a look at a few of these.

Just to start off, this is the typical roundup.

So this has the glyphosate in, it's one that we've had for a little while.

And like I said, the glyphosate active ingredient is being taken off the market.

We liked glyphosate because it was systemic, meaning it's absorbed into the plant and translocated into all parts of the plant, even down to the roots to get complete kill.

It was non-selective, so it would kill grassy weeds and broad leafs.

And has very short-lived or not active in the soil at all.

So those were all good properties that we really enjoyed.

Well, now here's, I believe this is what they are using now, this is, as you can see, it says weed and grass killer, just like this one says weed and grass killer.

But this one has three different chemicals in it now instead of just glyphosate.

so the triclopyr is one that will control mostly broadleaf weeds.

And then we have the Fluazifop P-butyl, which is also often sold as fusilade is a common name.

That one is a grass killer.

And then the diquat is kind of a quick burn down for mostly broadleaf weeds.

So together with those three together, we get similar control that we would've had with glyphosate.

Not quite as effective and as efficient, but it still works.

But see, we also have another Roundup product.

So again, you can't go by Roundup anymore as, you know, a name that you can focus on in terms of one control.

This one is labeled to kill weeds, but won't harm lawns.

So this one is labeled for use on your turf grasses and it will kill broad leaf weeds and certain grassy weeds like crab grass.

Now, note this one is also labeled for both cool season grasses and warm season grasses.

So something else you have to pay attention to.

So the point is you really need to look at and read and follow those, read the labels prior to or do some research prior to purchasing the product.

Okay.

Some of these lawn weed killers are labeled for use on warm season grasses like Bermuda grass, but it may not be labeled for use on cool season grasses like tall fescue and Kentucky Bluegrass which we use quite frequently, especially in shadier areas.

- Here's a couple other examples of, again, products that are labeled for control of weeds.

This one is called Sedge Ender and it's labeled for control of yellow nutsedge, but not purple nutsedge.

So yellow and purple nutsedge can both be problems in our landscapes.

And it's also labeled for use on cool and warm season lawns where this one called Sedgehammer.

This one has halosulfuron-methyl in it.

This one's labeled to control both purple and yellow nutsedge and is labeled for use on warm and cool season lawns.

While some of the others may be only labeled for use on warm season or cool season, and again may only control one or the other of the nutsedges.

Another couple products we have here, these are garden dusts and again, they have different chemicals in them.

Basically do the same thing in terms of most of the pests that they control.

But again, it really helps if you read and follow those labeled directions carefully.

So before you purchase, read those labels.

Do your research.

If you're trying to control specific weeds, make sure that you look on the label and that weed is listed on the label as a weed that will be controlled with this particular product.

Otherwise, you know, you might as well move on.

So also make sure that you use the proper rates.

Don't use less, don't double it.

Use only what they tell you to use 'cause that will be the most effective.

Most of our herbicides are more effective early on in the season when the weeds are young versus when they're larger and more mature, they're less effective.

You gotta be sure that for like some of our broadleaf weed killers, you don't wanna apply them when temperatures are above 85 degrees.

So like today, we're gonna be up in the 90s, so this would not be a day to be applying your broadleaf types of herbicides.

You also don't wanna apply them to stressed turf grasses or stressed plants because that's not, it's gonna be less effective.

So hopefully that helps you out a little bit.

When you go into the garden center, you're gonna see lots of brand names.

Make sure you look at the labels a little bit more carefully.

Select the one that's labeled for your specific weed that you're trying to control and your specific site that you wanna apply it to.

So for example, a vegetable garden versus a lawn versus a landscape bed because they're not all labeled for the same thing.

(bright music) (bright music) - Today we're back out here at the OSU Student Farm and I wanted to take advantage of our crop of tomatoes that are growing and show you a method to help stake them and stabilize them in your garden.

So this is called the stake and weave method, and it's a very popular method for trellising your tomatoes.

And one of the reasons why it's so popular is because it's pretty simple and doesn't require a lot of materials that you have to keep out of tomato growing season.

So a lot of times people might use cattle panels or even those metal cages, but then it's a matter of where do you put those and store those all winter long.

So in this method all we need is some stakes and also some twine.

And what we're simply going to do, you can see I'm gonna tie this off right here at this first stake and I'm actually gonna work my way back.

So I'm doing this, we have quite a long row here, but I'm doing this in about 15 to 16 foot increments between our T-posts and then between our T-posts, we also have some rebar stakes as well to just add a little bit of support as we go down through this row here.

So what we're gonna do is simply, like I said, we've got our twine and this is just baling twine tied off here.

And we're just gonna work our way back and forth between our tomatoes here.

So you can see they've grown up from the last time we've done this.

So we're coming up at about six inches from the last weave and then we're gonna go back and forth between our tomato plants.

And what that really does is that distributes the weight of the plant back and forth on this twine as we work our way down.

Now when we get to a post, what we're gonna do is circle our post a couple of times here so that again, it just supports that twine.

The tricky thing is making sure that it stays really tight as you work your way down this length.

So you can see I've worked my way down one side and at this point I went ahead and tied it off and I've started another line.

And at this point we're gonna work with that second line all the way back and we're gonna weave, you can see how this tomato went over on this side.

This one is on this side.

So what we're now gonna do is take our second line and weave on the opposite side that we did the first line.

You can see it's tied at the same height.

So these lines are gonna be crisscrossing.

- Right about the same place on that tomato, kind of holding it, pinching it in between there.

But this is not pinching, it's not gonna damage it or anything.

I will say the bigger and kind of overgrown your tomatoes get, you might lose a few branches as you're doing this, but it's okay.

It's just a little pruning on the plant.

So we're gonna work our way back, again, keeping this tight.

Now you could have done one string all the way down and just looped around your stake here and worked your way back, but a lot of times you'll lose that tension as you work bigger, longer distances with your string.

And so this is one method that we've just found that works really well here to go kind of about 15, 16 feet, tie it off, and then start another line to go the other side.

Again, you're gonna do this.

You can see we've done it about six to eight inches every so often, and as the plant grows, we'll continue to do that, and that's when you hope you have a long T-post so that depending on how big your tomato plant is, that you can continue to stake and weave it as it grows.

So we're using traditional T-posts here, so we're not gonna be able to do too much longer, but these are indeterminate tomatoes, meaning that they will continue to grow.

So we've got this row of tomato plants all nice and trellised now using this stake and weave method, and it's just gonna be a matter of time as they continue to grow that we have to come back through and do another row.

So it can be a little bit labor intensive, having to constantly come back and check versus having a cage that you can weave your tomato plant or something.

But again, the nice thing about this is when you're done is a matter of just staking or cutting this bailing twine off and then removing the T-post.

So if you have a tractor or something like that, you can easily get rid of this material and clean your bed and then you don't have a lot of materials to have to store during those winter months.

It definitely is probably easier with two people doing this.

Somebody to kind of manage and keep that string tight while somebody else is sort of finding the next tomato plant to divide them and weave between there.

So you can see it's a little bit messy.

You'll get some of that tomato oils on you and stuff like that, but a great method in order to keep the plant sort of sandwiched and up off of the ground and that helps increase air circulation and reduce any fungus and disease problems on your tomato plants.

(ceremonious music) There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of year.

Be sure and consider some of these events in the weeks ahead.

Join us next week right here on "Oklahoma Gardening" as the temperatures crank up and things begin drying out.

In case you think I don't do my own stunts.

(laughs) Well, I think it's interesting...

Sorry.

To find out more information about show topics as well as recipes, videos, articles, fact sheets, and other resources, including a directory of local extension offices, be sure to visit our website at oklahomagardening.okstate.edu.

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"Oklahoma Gardening" is produced by the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service as part of the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University.

The Botanic Garden at OSU is home to our studio gardens, and we encourage you to come visit this beautiful still water gem.

We would like to thank our generous underwriters, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, and Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.

Additional support is also provided by Greenleaf Nursery and the Garden Debut Plants, the Oklahoma Horticulture Society, the Tulsa Garden Club, and the Tulsa Garden Center.

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