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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22 SportsTurf | August 2014 www.sportsturfonline.com Field Science relative to the control at the time of painting. Of course there was some variation in how the color was judged over time. But remember the say- ing, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Most of these products will have a date in which they will need to be re-applied to get season-long green color. Over the 6 years we have tested these products, some years the color lasted the full winter and some years it did not. On average the best products will have good color for about 75 days. Good results on semi-dormant Grass In another study when the products were applied to semi- dormant turfgrass, the products performed much better due to the greater background color at the time of application. This is a very important point. Subsequent tests have proven that some background color goes a long way. Applied to semi-dormant turf- grass, the color will look better and may last longer. For optimum results, do not wait until the turfgrass is straw brown. Some of the colorant-treated turf took a bluish tint over time (some quicker than others). While this may sound like a nega- tive attribute, in one survey many people did not mind the bluish color. Why blue? Well, often green is produced by mixing blue and yellow pigments. The yellow pig- ments are generally not as stable as the blue pigments so as the products age, the blue tends to be the more dominant color. We also found that most of the darker, more bluish products held their color longer than the products that started out a more natural green color. The more natural green products tend to fade to a grayish color as they age. Applying the colorants at 160 gpa provided turf color increases up to 44 percent greater than the 80 gpa treat- ments. Applying colorants at rates above 80 gpa also resulted in increased color longevity over the winter season. We did not expect to see such a significant rate response in longevity of the products. More research is needed in this area to fully understand how to best use this information. I often get asked, "What is the best colorant?" In fairness, no one turf colorant was clearly superior on both grasses in terms of natural green color at the time of application and at the end of the winter season. Results from our earlier studies generally indicated that the colorants with the best natural green color did not generally last as long as some of the others. This suggests that to have a natural green color for the duration of the study, reapplication will be necessary. A longer-lasting color, although it may have a blue-ish hue, can be achieved with minimum to no reapplication. ■ Grady Miller, PhD, is professor of crop science at North Carolina State University. Drew Pinnix, MS, is a graduate research assistant in the Crop Science Department at NC State. Table 1. Visual colorant quality ratings following the application of turf colorant on ber- mudagrass in fall 2012. Colorant Name Colorant Quality Rating Initial Color Week 1 Week 5 Week 10 Bermudagrass 3.4 1.0 1.0 Not Categorized endurant 7.9 7.0 1.8 Dark Green enviroseal Go Green 7.0 7.0 6.8 Yellow Green evergreen 8.0 6.8 3.9 Green Green dye turf Colorant 7.0 7.0 7.0 Yellow Green Green lawnger 8.8 8.3 7.0 Green Green lawnger-Graphics 7.0 6.0 2.4 Blue-Gray Green Green lawnger-lineman 7.8 6.6 4.1 Green Kameelyan-Bermuda 7.0 7.0 6.1 Green Blue Kameelyan-Blue 7.0 7.0 7.0 Blue lesco Green 8.4 8.0 5.4 Green mtp turfgreen 7.0 4.3 1.3 Blue-Gray Green original 7.3 6.9 5.3 Yellow Green regreen 7.3 7.0 6.5 Green Blue solarogen 7.8 7.4 4.8 Blue-Gray Green southwest Green 7.8 7.6 1.8 Black Green southwestern 3.0 1.1 1.0 Dark Green spraymax 8.1 6.0 3.9 Dark Green sugar Hill 8.0 6.0 1.8 Black Green super Cover 4.3 1.6 1.0 Blue-Gray Green titan Green turf 7.9 7.0 5.8 Green turf Cote 1.8 1.0 1.0 Not Categorized ultradwarf Plus 8.0 6.0 1.6 Dark Green ultradwarf super 8.1 7.5 2.8 Dark Green Wintergreen 7.0 7.0 7.0 Green Blue Quality ratings are based on the color of the colorant on a scale of 1-9 with 1=straw brown to 9=dark green. Products categorized as Blue and Yellow Green had a maxi- mum rating of 7. Colorants applied to Tifway bermudagrass (left) maintained beside next to tall fescue area (right).