You Asked, Patch Answers: How Does Town Treat Playing Fields?

Those little signs sticking up out of the lawn that say, “Lawn chemicals applied on such-and-such a date. Keep posted for 48 hours,” can be a little unsettling. They don’t say “keep off!” but they do say “lawn chemicals.”

After a parent noticed just such a sign on the grass at Academy Field recently, he sent a photo of it (seen here) to EG Patch with the message, “what’s wrong with this picture?” That’s because in the background of the photo were young children (U-6) playing rec soccer.

EG Patch talked to Parks & Recreation Director Cathy Bradley to find out more.

In this particular case, Bradley said, the parks superintendent had applied a “small amount” of grub control to an area of the field that appeared to have grubs (grubs eat grass roots).

“It was a very small patch close to the patio,” Bradley said of the application. But, she said, that is not typical of how the town applies treatments to fields.

Rather, she said, they usually try to time applications for times when the fields will not be in use. The last widespread application of fertilizer was on Sept. 5, she said.

Additionally, while the signs are up for 48 hours, the area is safe much sooner than that, Bradley said.

“The company tells us that people can use the field after any sprayed-on [wet] products have dried,” she said. On a sunny day, that takes place within minutes.

“Since we instituted an Integrated Pest Management program, we only treat with herbicides, pesticides, etc., when there is a  problem,” she continued. “And we only spot treat the affected area – we do not blanket the entire site.”

The only thing that would be applied over the entire area would be fertilizer, which is granular, said Bradley.

The bottom line is, she said, “We don’t want to put anything that we don’t need on our fields.”