Effects of Turf Colorant on Creeping Bentgrass Putting Green during Winter and Greenup Season

Sang-Jin Lee1   Seog-Won Chang1   Ki-Dong Kim1   Kyung-Rok Shim2   Jeong-Ho Lee1,*   

1Dept. of Golf Course Management, Korea Golf University, Hoengseong 25249, Korea
2Ventrac Korea. Inc., Wonju 26365, Korea

Abstract

From the visual aspect of turf grass quality, turf colorant has been used to keep the vividness of green color and extend the duration of green color of turfgrass during the winter season of Korean golf courses. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of turf colorant application on creeping bentgrass planted in domestic golf courses during the winter. According to the result of this experiment, the colorant-applied zone, regardless of dilution rate and colorant types, showed higher or similar normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and chlorophyll contents than in the control during the winter or the period of green-up. In addition, the NDVI and chlorophyll contents were higher in 1x treatment than 1/2x treatment. Because of the difference of green color duration of the colorants, the selection of turf colorant should consider its properties like coloration rate. According to the evaluation of root length and turf density, the colorant applied in the experiment had little effect on the growth of turfgrass, green-up started at the experiment zone in March, while as turf grass grew normally. In conclusion, the coloration rate and duration should be considered selection of turf colorant. It is possible to extend the green color duration by using the colorant during the winter season and it is confirmed that there is no damage to green-up in the following year. Also, using colorants will be one of the ways to maintain the visual quality until the recovery and increase the satisfaction of the customers.

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