TMC Sports Field Services
We offer many different services to help maintain and improve natural grass sports fields as well as artificial turf fields all over Texas. (click main image for larger / slideshow view)
Infield Power Rake
Infield Power Rake
Erase small to medium sized lips around infield edges. Despite a field manager’s best efforts, infield red dirt and conditioner migrates into the grass edges, causing raised areas/lips to form over time. These lips can lead to bad hops on ground balls and other safety related issues for players. Lips will also cause an infield to hold water during a rain event by impeding an infield’s ability to shed water from the surface (presuming the infield slopes are properly engineered to begin with).
TMC’s Power Rake service will effectively grind down the lips by removing the built-up topsoil and infield material along the edges and haul it off the field. Removing this material will bring the infield edges back down to match up with the infield skinned area for a more uniform elevation. The Power Rake service will temporarily tear up the edges while the turfgrass heals and grows in again so performing this work is usually reserved for the off-season.
Prevention: Keep lips from building up as quickly by regularly sweeping the grass edges and moving any infield red dirt and conditioner back into the skinned area. If more material has migrated into the grass edges and sweeping the edges doesn’t cut it, spraying a strong stream of water from a hose will be more aggressive in removing the material from the edges and pushing it back onto the skinned area.
Should infield lips become too large, a more complete infield renovation will be required that will involve measuring and removing the existing grass edges, re-grading (either laser grading or manual grading) the topsoil/infield skinned area back to the proper elevation and planting new grass.