Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences recently released a /U/420/Userfiles/Blog/staph_survival_on_synthetic_turf.pdf">Report to THE SYNTHETIC TURF COUNCIL On the Research Project SURVIVAL OF Staphylococcus aureus ON SYNTHETIC TURF."

The objective of the study was to examine the survival of S. aureus on infilled synthetic turf systems and natural turfgrass under different environmental conditions and to evaluate the effectiveness of various control agents applied to the synthetic turf in both indoor and outdoor situations.

The report concluded "Commercially available antimicrobial treatments as well as detergent significantly decreased the survival rate of S. aureus present on these natural grass and crumb rubber infilled synthetic turf indoors although every experimental unit inoculated tested positive for the presence of S. aureus for the first 4 hours and a number were still positive 9 days after inoculation."

The report stated, "It is difficult to draw conclusions regarding the effectiveness of various treatments in an outdoor environment because the bacteria do not appear to survive very long under these conditions whether treatments were applied or not, but both detergent and fabric softener applied to the surface around the time of bacterial inoculation seem to reduce S. aureus survival somewhat. Exposures to UV light and higher temperature seem to be the most effective disinfectant under the conditions of this experiment."

Twelve references were cited in the report besides a regime of 10 indoor and outdoor treatments to include: Untreated control, Low rate S. aureus, High rate S. aureus, antimicrobial 1 hr prior, Surfactant 1 hr prior, Antimicrobial 25 days prior, A+S 25 days prior, Kentucky bluegrass, Detergent post, and Detergent 1.5 hr prior.