The first of 86,000 rolls of turf have been installed at Orange's new sports precinct, beginning to cover the precinct's eight new sporting fields.
The first rolls of freshly-harvested rolls of Santa Anna couch grass arrived on-site this week.
Orange City Councillors joined the crews on-site today to help roll out the first turf.
Orange Mayor Tony Mileto said laying the turf comes after weeks of preparation on the sports fields, which began after 16 kilometres of drainage and 6.8 km of irrigation pipes were installed and the installation of the wickets.
"The beauty of these new fields is that for the first time in Orange, they've been topped with a layer of 200 mm of sand," Cr Mileto said.
"That means that in future when other fields are turning to mud after heavy rain, these new fields at the sports precinct are going to be playable again much sooner."
The challenge with growing grass in sand is lack of nutriment to let the grass grow. To meet that challenge, crews have been spreading a specially-formulated blend of Dynamic Lifter, other fertiliser and gypsum.
After the fertiliser is spread across the fields, special tractor-mounted equipment called a Blecovator, folds the fertiliser mix into the sand layer. Then, when the turf is rolled out, and the irrigation is turned on, the new turf has ideal growing conditions that it needs.
It's expected to take around 7 to 8 days to lay all the turf on the first four fields.
Orange City Council Recreation & Culture Committee Chair Cr Tammy Greenhalgh has welcomed the latest progress.
"It's great to be seeing steady progress on the precinct site," Cr Greenhalgh said.
"While we're expecting the stadium project to go out to tender in the coming months, it's important for local residents to also see practical progress on the new sports fields."
"With turf now growing, it's really starting to look like a place where we can imagine sport happening."
The precinct's three cricket pitches have been growing their grass since December last year.
Orange City Council is expecting the eight new fields will be ready for the next cricket season, later this year.
The NSW Government has committed $59.5 million to the project and the Australian Government has committed $15 million to the Orange Sports Precinct project.
