It wasn't too many years ago when golf courses were expected to be "green" year round and so courses in the south spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours overseeding the golf course to satisfy the demands of the golfer. It is great to see that our industry has, for the most part, gone away from this practice and has found other, better ways to keep our courses looking good in the winter months without the drain on budgets and the environment. For many of us we have replaced the overseeding of greens, tees, and fairways with "liquid overseed", otherwise known as paint or pigments.
Just like everything else in the golf course industry, there are as many different ways to paint the greens and as many different products out there as there are superintendents. We have tried many different colorant products and many different ways to get the job done but we like our little ProLawn walk behind sprayer the best. It only takes about 10-12 minutes to do an average size green and we think the final product looks very nice.
This year we are using a new product from Harrell's called
Dormant Green. In the years past we have used a different product which was a lighter green and thus we had to add a black paint with it to get the dark green color we desired. The Dormant Green is already tinted to the dark green color we want so mixing is very convenient. The picture to the right shows the different stages of painting. On the far left is the green prior to painting. The short pass in the middle of the picture is a single pass where I began to run out of product in the tank and the far right shows the final product, that being two applications up and back on the same line. Going up and back on the same line helps to eliminate any streaks or skips that might be made during the application process and gives a more uniform finished look.
Painting the greens instead of overseeding them allows us to eliminate the cost of the seed, fertilizer, mowing, and water, as well as eliminates the competition between the primary turfgrass on our greens and the overseed during spring transition. Many benefits come from using a "liquid overseed" and we will enjoy them all. Hope you do as well.
