Weather carries the final vote when it comes to sports field openings in Salmon Arm, but so far so good.
“It’s looking favourable depending on what kind of weather we receive,” says Darin Gerow, the city’s manager of roads and parks. “It all depends on weather. We’re hoping, best-case scenario, the end of April.”
He says the fields are looking good right now. They have all been patched, with more maintenance still to be done.
Even if the fields are open before April 30, the major sports fields – Blackburn, Little Mountain and Jackson –will be closed on May 1, 2 and 3.
The city will be doing some hard-core maintenance during that time such as deep-tine aeration, where the fields will be aerated as deep as the tines of the aerator will go into the gravel. The channels created allow air to penetrate the soil, providing the plant roots the oxygen needed to grow. That will be followed by spreading, in layman’s terms, special sand.
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As for what are commonly called the Safeway fields, recently renamed the Downtown fields – those adjoining the school board building and the downtown activity centre, are doing well.
“We just finished that off, upper and lower; it will be used for youth soccer,” says Jason Chernoff, parks supervisor. “They have been patched already, they’re growing well.”
Overall, the fields are in much the same shape as they were at the same time last year, say staff, so the opening date will be similar, with weather the deciding factor.
@SalmonArm
marthawickett@saobserver.net
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