Coloring Greens at the Players and Members Clubs

      We reserved a closed afternoon this week at the Players Club in order to color our greens. On Tuesday the 4th, we were able to color all of our nineteen greens. We had perfect weather conditions for the application and the entire process ran smoothly. The Members Club has already completed their 27 greens over the past week. Here is a brief description of the process and the reasons we chose to color vs overseeding.

      Why color instead of overseeding? First, coloring the greens is cheaper than overseeding in many ways. Reduced labor, water usage and pesticides are all processes that are decreased and/or eliminated with coloring the greens. We only need one person, as apposed to several, to color the greens. This savings in manpower can be focused on other facets of the course. Our water usage is reduced drastically with coloring. We, as an effluent supplied course, do not feel this directly into our pocketbooks but the reduction helps us to keep the greens firm and healthy through the winter. On the other hand the reduced pesticides does directly affect our bottom line. There is no need to fertilize or combat turfgrass pests with non-overseeded greens. This reduction alone pays for the colorant used to color at the greens.
      Second, the elimination of competition in the spring. Cool season grasses, like bluegrass and ryegrass, thrive in the early spring months. This competition reduces the amount of nutrients and sunlight available to the emerging turf beneath. The winter turf tends to "hang around" until late May/June which shortens the summer turf's growing season by two full months. The overseeding process, over time, will drastically reduce the quality of the early summer turf, leaving undesirable putting surface until mid to late July. The coloring process, on the other hand, actually promotes early growth in the Spring. The dark color absorbs heat which enhances the environment for which warm season turf species requires.
      Finally, scheduling. The overseeding process takes time. It can take ten to twelve people an entire day to overseed eighteen greens. This, along with the prep work and watering, can take an entire week to complete. The entire greens overseeding process forces us to close the course entirely for at least a couple days as apposed to one afternoon of coloring.
     
      Now that we have highlighted the why we do it, lets look at the what and how aspects of coloring the putting surfaces.
      We use a product called  Endurant turf colorant. This product is a non-toxic, equipment and environmentally friendly organic pigment used to color dormant turf. This product is not a paint. We chose this colorant based on university test results and local recommendations. We will only be able to analyze the efficacy of this selection as the winter moves forward. As of this post, we are extremely pleased with our results.
      Endurant, as stated above, is sprayer friendly. This means that this product will not damage the internal parts of our sprayer systems. Paints and other colorants tend to cause severe damage to sprayers which can cost clubs thousands of dollars in repairs. The fact that we could apply this product directly through our green's sprayer was another factor for choosing this colorant. The ability to use our sprayer reduced the time and cost of utilizing specialized equipment for the application. Here are some pictures of the application process.

Superintendent Grayson Grainger applying colorant



Close up of the spray application

     We were able to color all of the greens in three hours with one man using the above method. This process will be repeated one or two more times through January and February. We are confident that this turf colorant will provide more than satisfactory color and playing conditions through the winter. Should you have any thoughts or concerns, please post a comment below.