Topdressing and Interseeding

Monday was a busy day for the turf management team as we gave the greens on the course a healthy dose of love in the form of topdressing, spiking, brushing, and rolling.  This process helps to incorporate sand into the top organic layer of the turf profile to help dilute thatch and produce a firmer and smoother putting surface.

While doing so, we also made our first attempt at interseeding Alpha bentgrass into 6 green.  This green in particular has the highest percentage of Poa Annua of any green on the course (at least 90%) and because of this it has consistently been one of our poorest performing greens as well.

To complete the interseeding process, we started by scalping the entire green, collar, and approach down to a very low height to help open up the canopy in order to get seed in the ground.  The green was then spiked and seeded at a half rate.  The topdressing sand was then applied, another half rate of seed applied, and then the entire surface was spiked 3 more times to help work the seed down into the surface a little where it will be able to retain water better and produce more effective germination.  The green was then rolled and topdressed again.

Scalping down the green, collar, and approach on 6.

Collin dropping the second half rate of seed after topdressing.

After the second seeding, we spiked the entire surface 3 different directions

Last step, just add water.  Seed needs to stay constantly moist in order to
germinate, so we will be regularly running the sprinklers on 6 green for
the next week or so.

I have to admit, that this is going to be a bit of a trial process.  I have seeded dozens of new greens in my career, but have never gone through the process or "reseeding" a green that is already covered with grass.  I am optimistic that this process will be successful and help to provide some much better turf conditions on 6 green in the coming years.  If we can make this process work well, we will be attempting it on some of our other more heavily populated Poa Annua greens and collars in the coming months and years also.