Thirty years ago, sand topdressing fairways was a crazy idea. Sure, it made sense on greens, but many people questioned the cost, time and disruption to make multiple applications of sand to 25 or 30 acres of fairways. Was it really necessary? While fairway topdressing is not necessary for all golf courses, there are situations where it has proven to be an effective program to improve playability and address specific agronomic concerns. Here are five questions often asked about fairway topdressing and what you need to know to establish an effective program.
1. What situations can be corrected with fairway topdressing?
Courses with adverse soil conditions or poor water quality are good candidates for sand topdressing. Good examples are courses with compacted clay soils, caliche, soils with high sodium and/ or salinity, and courses with chronic drainage problems. The overall goal of the program is to build a layer of sand on the surface of the fairways that provides better water infiltration and drainage, resists compaction, and makes it easier to manage salinity and sodium. If your course is fortunate to have good soil and adequate drainage, then sand topdressing is not for you.
2. Is it necessary to core aerate fairways before topdressing?
3. What is the best sand to use? While it is not necessary to use the same quality of sand used for topdressing greens, it is important to use sand with minimal silt and clay content. Silt content should be < 5% by weight and clay content should by <3% by weight. A USGA funded fairway topdressing study at the University of Connecticut in 2007 – 2008 showed that the application rate of sand was more important than the sand type use for topdressing. This opens up options for using less expensive, locally available sand to make the program more affordable.
4. How much sand needs to be applied and how often? An effective sand topdressing rate is between 10 to 20 tons per acre for each application. An accelerated program of making 3 to 4 applications per year at the 20 ton per acre rate is most effective in the early stages until a 1-inch layer of sand is visible on the surface. At that point, many superintendents reduce the rate to 10 tons per acre and continue applications until a 5 to 6-inch sand layer is achieved.
5. How many years of topdressing are necessary before seeing results? It is important to make at least an 8-to-10-year commitment to the program to get tangible results. Many courses see improvement after 1-inch of accumulated sand is visible on the surface, usually after 3 years of applications. It is important to remain committed to the program until a 5 to 6-inch layer of sand is achieved. Courses that suspended applications for 1 or 2 years early in the process or only made intermittent applications found that they lost all benefits they had previously gained. Once the 5 to 6-inch layer of sand is achieved, most courses resume their core aeration program to bring sand to the surface and reincorporate it back into the turf as topdressing.
The articles Is Fairway Topdressing Right For Your Course? (usga.org) and Another Decade of Piling It On provide further details about implementing successful fairway topdressing programs.
If you have any questions about turfgrass management, irrigation or water use efficiency, feel free to email them to me at pgross@ewingos.com.