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.