Turfscreen / Sunscreen

The greens are a little greener color right now because the first application of turfscreen went down yesterday.  Turfscreen is a relatively new product that was discovered by a superintendent who accidentally spilled sunscreen on a green.  Turfscreen acts just like sunscreen for the turf and it also has a green pigment in it that is beneficial to the putting greens turf.  You can see in the picture below that at the very bottom of the picture, the approach area, is more of our normal light green color, but then the straight line where the sprayer turned on has the darker green color on the putting surface.

Turfscreen protects the plant from the sunlight, lowers the surface temperature of the grass, and helps the turf from drying out and wilting as much.  Two years ago we did small applications to test the quality of the product and we were very impressed on how the turf was drying and wilting right next to the application, but the protected area had not wilted.  So last year we included it our regular fertilizer tank mix every two weeks.  From mid-June to the beginning of September, our greens will be protected with "sunscreen" and it is just another tool that we use to combat mother natures intense weather, and still produce the best putting conditions in the heat of the summer.