The PACE Turf topdressing rate spreadsheets have been updated with a new default starting value for monthly maximum topdressing sand.
US units spreadsheet
Metric units spreadsheet
I watched the Greenkeeper App meeting about organic matter, and I recommend you do too. The video has Doug Soldat, Bill Kreuser, and Roch Gaussoin talking about soil organic matter, rootzones, sand topdressing, and turf performance.
Does this sound about right?
Matching sand topdressing to the growth of the grass works out pretty good when applying 1 cm3 of sand for every 1 cm3 of clipping volume.
I’ve been at Keya Golf Club for the KBC Augusta tournament this week. Yesterday afternoon I watched some shots during the first practice round, and took a few videos of ball reaction on the greens.
Last week I spent a few days in Fukuoka. I was there for the 103rd Japan Amateur Golf Championship. On the the morning of July 5, I recorded a short iron shot landing on the 16th green at the host venue, Keya Golf Club.
Jason Haines has been sharing some ideas on his Turf Hacker blog, and one that I think is especially interesting is the idea that one can precisely match the topdressing sand quantity to the growth of the grass.
Some years ago I shared some articles that I often referred to or recommended, and I called that Five articles every greenkeeper should read. As I look at this list of articles now, I’m reminded of the familiar maxim about understanding the rules before breaking them.
I’ve been sitting on this idea for a long time, and I decided today would be a great day to write about it. You can decide if I’m serious.
When we first study turfgrass management, we tend to learn a proactive approach.
PACE Turf have prepared this spreadsheet that takes inputs of average temperatures and a maximum monthly topdressing rate, and gives outputs of estimated monthly and annual topdressing sand amounts.
It is a metric version of this:
There’s a new spreadsheet available from PACE Turf that uses the temperature-based growth potential to estimate the quantity of sand required as topdressing. They wrote:
“To get a rough idea of how much sand to apply over the course of the year, we have developed a simple spreadsheet that uses growth potential (GP) as a guide, and a maximum sand application of 150 lbs dry sand/1000 ft2 per month at maximum turf growth.