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Champions Series: Hagen Faith
CHAMPIONS SERIES:
Irrigation on the pitch, not just the paddock
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Keeping it green is Hagen Faith, Turf Manager of Wellington Regional Stadium Trust – responsible for the turf at both Sky Stadium and the Basin Reserve.
When the word irrigation comes to mind the words grass, crops and paddocks often follow, although it is much more than that.
Irrigation is a crucial aspect to one of New Zealand’s biggest sports stadiums.
Hagen Faith is the Turf Manager of Wellington Regional Stadium Trust.
Mr Faith is responsible for turf surfaces at Sky Stadium, formerly known as Westpac Stadium or ‘The Cake Tin’ to some, as well as the Basin Reserve.
Some may not appreciate the responsibility that comes with looking after surfaces that host international sports games and concerts, which can be viewed by over 30,000 people – and that’s just those in the stands.
In the early days, Mr Faith worked on a dairy farm before starting his racecourse maintenance apprenticeship at Otaki Racecourse.
He then crossed his apprenticeship to Sports Turf Management in 2008 when he began working for the Trust (Wellington Regional Stadium Trust). Mr Faith has found his passion in turf management and became manager in 2015. He said his job involved managing staff and everything to do with grounds upkeep from regular mowing, fertilising, pest management and irrigating, to continually prepping for events.
Both Sky Stadium and the Basin Reserve were operated by a Rainbird network system.
“The system means I can operate the irrigation for both grounds from anywhere,
which is really effective … as long as everything is working right.”
Mr Faith said Sky Stadium covered 1.5 hectares and had 65 pop up sprinklers.
Approximately 5ml of water coverage was applied to the field on each application and 750kgs of Nitrate each year.
“It has a sandbased profile so there’s no time to muck around if it’s getting dry.”
He said when they irrigated was of course weather dependent but, during the summer it was usually every second day based on evapotranspiration levels.
Not only did the fields have to look good but they also had to perform well, especially when the stadium hosted an excess of 55 high profile events a year.
“Grass plays an important part in a match, the cricket wicket moisture percentage can affect how it can play … the moisture profile is different for rugby and soccer as in soccer there needs to be a faster ball roll … we know the numbers and have a target for each event,” said Mr Faith.
“If we didn’t have irrigation the fields certainly wouldn’t be up to scratch.”
Mr Faith said he found his job very rewarding but, like all jobs it came with challenges.
“One of the biggest challenges is keeping the grass good between events, sometimes there’s not much time to look back and reflect … last year we had the Eminem concert which was the biggest event we’ve ever had, and then a week later we had our first super rugby match. Having the grass performing after having so many people on it at the concert was important.”
He said in a lot of ways his job was similar to working in the farming and growing industry.
“You’re always on the go, thinking about how the grass is growing … utilising good watering techniques and fertiliser management … fertilising is crucial coming into a rugby event following a concert.”
