Topdressing Greens

This week we spiked greens and topdressed them with a fine grade sand. Following all of the wet weather recently, the putting surfaces were in desperate need of oxygen to the root systems. The past couple of days we spent opening up these holes and took advantage of the opportunity to also incorporate sand into the root zone. We schedule light topdressing to each green every two weeks throughout the season. Due to the late start and wet conditions this was our third application of the season. By this time last year we had five applications done.
There are many benefits to topdressing greens on a consistent basis. The most important is dilution of the thatch layer in the soil profile. With our cold temperatures our microbial activity does not break down the thatch fast enough.
Sand helps with smoothing out any blemishes and ballmarks, firms up the surface, allows water and nutrients to penetrate through the root zone more freely for maximum plant uptake. A sand profile also has the least amount of compaction which can be detrimental to any root system. These pictures show you how we spread the sand accurately to the surface and follow that by dragging with an old carpet. Following that we sometimes roll the greens and complete them with a heavy watering cycle that night to help wash the sand into the turf.