The effects of artificial lighting on sports turf

Growing sports turf in a stadium can be a challenge for greenkeepers. The desire to reduce impact of weather conditions during sporting events and to increase human comfort has led to the development of semi- or fully closed stadia, resulting in significant shade for the turf pitch. Light reduction becomes a limiting factor for the growth of turfgrass leading to decreased quality and wear tolerance of the playing surfaces. Thereby the use of lighting in stadia is more and more common and is now considered as a requirement to maintain high-quality playing surfaces. Most stadia use conventional high-pressure sodium (HPS) technology as artificial lighting. Lighting is used in stadia to improve turf in low-light conditions by allowing accelerated regrowth of the turf, through the optimization of photosynthesis. However, these HPS lamps are very energy intensive and not sustainable. Therefore, more and more stadia have chosen to go into light-emitting diode (LED) lighting. This study was performed to determine the effects of artificial lighting (HPS and LED) on turf quality, turf density, and wear tolerance of different cool-seasons grass species used for sports fields under shaded conditions. This experiment showed that (a) rough meadow-grass (Poa trivialis) significantly thrives in shade, and (b) HPS and LED lighting sources yielded similar results for all turfgrass species investigated. Thereby, our results suggest that artificial lighting can significantly improve cool-season turfgrass under shade for turf quality, turf density, and wear tolerance.