Astroturf and Artificial Grass and American Ingenuity.

When most folks think about artificial grass our minds tend to think up pictures of neatly manicured home lawns and giant sporting arenas and fields. However, the real story of synthetic turf is much more detailed and curious than one may imagine. From the humble start to the many different international uses , the history of astroturf is a interesting cascade through good old fashioned ingenuity and Amercian innovation.

The begining of astroturf can be traced back to the mid 20th century. Donald Elbert - Robert Wright - James Faria were all three prominant researchers at the Chemstrand Company or (-Monsanto-). They then began to experiment with synthetic fibers and during the year 1964 their hard efforts came to fruition with the first creation of the worlds unique and first synthetic turf. Astrotruf was originally called ChemGrass.
Astroturfs original design and function was not to replace organic grass rather to help serve as a playing ground for indoor sports. It was introduced to the world as a permenent solution to issues faced by plaing on real grass by athletes where natural and organic grass could not grow year round or at all. The Houston Astrodome in 1966 first installed a large artificial turf sports field. Coining the term and name of Astroturf.
Astroturf was now considered a real game changer. The artifical playing surface was now completely unaffected by the weather and it was very low maintenace compared to natural grass. Consequently, now all the sports games could now be played indoors without interruptions from weather or unforeseen maintenace conditions. The worlds sports stadiums would be able to generate more and more revenue from the games now being played more often without interruption.

Now the many benefits of Astroturf were evident to all and the application of astroturf began to extend far beyond indoor sport stadiums and events. The outdoor sport venues especially those in extreme climate conditions year round started to adopt synthetic turf to help with the challenges caused by drought and scarcity of rainfall and water resourceing. Soccer fields and football stadiums were the first to try the newly innovated syntetic products.

Now mostly reffered to as artificial grass and fake grass they have become the standard in the world of sports and home garden turf landscapes.. It is not only the go-to surface at sporting events but now also common and desired in residential fake lawns, turf rooftops and field turf for playgrounds and home.

This short history of how Astroturf began and expanded is a good example to American ingenuity and the constant pursuit of new advaced solutions to everyday issues. As this syntehtic technology continues to grow and expand I’m sure we can all expect Astroturf to stay in our homes and sport stadiums and fields. Giving everyone the green and vibrant sports artifical playing surfaces and home turf landscape for many years ahead.