Abstract
Korea and Japan hosted the FIFA World Cup Soccer Game in 2002. Ten stadiums had been built and more than 30 soccer grounds for practice were renovated in Korea. Sport fields in both countries had problems on cool-season turfgrass growth and quality by summer decline during humid and warm climate especially followed by intensive uses. We measured the effects of air-flow system, which is designed to optimize rootzone soil gas and moisture levels to promote the growth and maintenance turfgrass. This experiment was carried out to verify the effects of the system on soil gas exchange, ground resilience, and turfgrass recovery in turfgrass rootzone. Within 1 or 2hr of operation of the system, rootzone soil gas ($CO_2$, $O_2$) levels returned to natural atmospheric levels completely Soil $CO_2$ levels began to decrease within the first 10 min of operation of the system. The levels were reduced from 1.3 to 0.06% after 30 min, and natural atmospheric levels within 1 hr. When the system was turned off, $CO_2$ levels increased to 0.36% and 0.7% after 5 and 20 hr, respectively. The application of the system did not affect the resilience of turf surface after traffic treatments. Higher traffic treatment resulted in higher surface resilience especially in zoysiagrass plots. Operation of the system had a significant beneficial impact on turf recovery by increased root dry wight and improved turf quality, as compared with the non-operated check plots.
