This morning we verticut greens again in conjunction with a sand topdressing, only this time with a bit of a twist. With conditions definitely favoring bentgrass at the moment, we took the opportunity to interseed T1 bentgrass while our Poa Annua is stressing a little more from the heat. After Poa has gone to seed in late spring, it weakens and can quickly lose ground to the deeper-rooted bentgrass when maintained properly.
We applied seed with drop spreaders before the topdressing went down at a rate of about 1/2#/1000 sq ft. T1 is a variety we have had success interseeding with and on our nursery green. It establishes pretty quickly and is a beautiful shade of green when compared to the Dominant Blend bentgrasses we began with 18 years ago. It is aggressive laterally and has proven to fight off Poa Annua under our maintenance regimen on our Nursery Green.
Following the seed , we applied 24 tons of 80/20 USGA sand/peat mixture with our topdresser, drug it in with our cocoa mat and said a little prayer for seed germination. The peat isn't normally incorporated in our topdresssing sand, but should hold a little more moisture than straight sand to help the seed stay moist longer. We will give the seed a light watering each morning to help along germination. There should be another slight increase in speed following our verticut, and with speeds already at 11' today, it is recommended to keep the ball below the hole whenever possible.
