SportsTurf

August 2014

SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.

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20 SportsTurf | August 2014 www.sportsturfonline.com Field Science | By Grady Miller, PhD and Drew Pinnix, MS M ost athletic fields require an established, growing turfgrass during the winter season in order to accommodate sports play. If it is a warm-season grass some people may overseed it with ryegrass for green color, particularly if the field is to be used for late winter and early spring sports. But that is not the only way of having a green athletic field. A relatively new option is to "paint the turf green." For many years, overseeding has been the standard for providing green color over winter months. With the number of new and improved turf colorants on the market today, colorant manufacturers have given turf managers another option. It has been called "instant overseeding"—the prac- tice of applying a green turf colorant to dormant grass. Spring transition from overseeded grasses to bermuda- grass is often problematic due to drought resistant cool-season grass varieties and extended cool and wet conditions in late spring, similar to what was experi- enced earlier this year in the transition zone. Applying colorant to semi-dormant to dormant bermudagrass fields provides an alternative to overseeding. But paint- ing is not just for bermudagrass. I used bermudagrass in the above example since it is the most commonly overseeded grass. You can paint any grass; some even like to paint cool-season grasses such as tall fescue or bluegrass in order to mask unsightly blemishes. Factors to consider One of the first questions asked is, "How much does one of these paint products cost?" A gallon of turf colorant Green SporTS FieldS uSinG TurF coloranTS Digital images of colorant treated plots on a Miniverde putting green.

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