All You Need To Know About Artificial Grass

By Author: Charl Huk
Total Articles: 3
Comment this article

Intended initially to enhance inner city youth’s physical fitness around the 1950’s the production of synthetic grass sprouted into an entire industry.

In the formative years, when it all began, The Ford Foundation’s Education Facilities Laboratory in an alliance with Monsanto Industries and Chemstrand, encouraged that synthetic fiber carpeting should be done in schools. In the following years from 1962, the synthetic turf carpets were tested for flammability, water drainage and resistance as well as durability.

Moses Brown School in Providence, Rhode Island was the place where the first large synthetic grass installation took place in 1964. Now there are such lawns found in abundance. Especially the Artificial Lawns in Hertfordshire are worth mentioning.

Some places do not support the natural growth of grass or for that matter any natural vegetation. Such an incident happened in 1965 when Houston’s Astrodome was in desperate need of a consistent playing field as environmental conditions did not permit a decent atmosphere. So instead of the field being coated with green, Astrodome developer Judge ...
... Hofheinz consulted Monsanto about installing what was then popularly known as Chemgrass.

In 1966, Houston Astros, the Major League baseball team began their season throwing pitches and knocking out home runs on top of Chemgrass and since then it was formally re-named as “Astroturf,” a name popular among most Americans even today. Invented by James M. Faria and Robert T. Wright of the Chemstrand Company, this first generation synthetic grass from Astroturf showcased tightly curled nylon fibers woven into a foam backing.

On July 25, 1967, a Trademark patent was officially issued for artificial turf. Following this success, Indiana State University installed artificial turf for the first outdoor stadium in 1967.

Gradually, artificial turf became a surface success and continued it's slow but certain journey being a part of sports arenas throughout the United States and Canada. By the 1970’s, the artificial turf industry followed the shag carpet trend and “shag turf” was introduced. The longer yarns now were created from a softer polypropylene material, much more user-friendly than its first generation. Some sports like field hockey benefited from this surface though soccer was still played in the dust as the soccer ball’s reaction on the grass surface was real damaging.

The middle of 1990’s saw the birth of a third generation artificial turf that featured a much softer ethylene blade fiber that lasted for a longer period than its predecessors. This is a kind of turf which will very often be found on any residential, commercial or sports landscape these days. You can see it laid all over in the Artificial Lawns in Hertfordshire.

Charl Huk is the author of this Article. To know more about Artificial Lawns in Hertfordshire please visit the website.