SOS® extends the playing season significantly. A pitch that is overseeded early in the season retains a good grass cover. Pitches can be more intensively used than ever before. SOS® greatly increases the number of playing hours, sometimes as much as by 100 hours per year.
The following graph shows how grass cover increases after overseeding with SOS®. It shows how grass cover deteriorates significantly in the first half of the season. Without overseeding, it first deteriorates even more before it begins to show a recovery.
SOS® gives the grass a boost and ensures that the grass cover is in top shape again within a short space of time.
Planning football matches is difficult enough. It is even more difficult when you have to switch matches around because of poor quality pitches. SOS® guarantees the sward's recovery; it is a low-cost way to extend the playing season.
Is your sward in need of repair? Whether it is for the goal area in a stadium, the local amateur club’s penalty box or your local football pitch, go for SOS® now!
It is possible to predict the germination of SOS® grass using the Growing Degree Days calculation method. Growing Degree Days are commonly used in agriculture to predict the best time to harvest or to fertilise a crop. It is also a useful method for determining the development of weeds in a crop. It can also be successfully used for grass.
Research trials by Barenbrug have shown that grass varieties may germinate at either high or low temperatures within the normal germination period. However, this trial also showed that the seeds of all varieties eventually germinated by the end of the trial. We can draw the conclusion that the germination process is strongly dependent on the sum of the average temperatures.
The Growing Degree Days, or GDDs for short, can be calculated using the following formula: (Tmax + Tmin)/2. The research trials have shown that SOS® germinates after 100 to 110 GDDs, whereas a 100% perennial ryegrass variety such as Bargold takes 115 GDDs and Barlennium takes 120 GDDs. The following table shows that, in various situations, the lower the temperature, the greater the added value of SOS®.
