Brushing Greens

If you've ever watched a golf tournament on TV, more than likely you've heard an announcer use the term grain.  What they're referring to is the growth habit of the grass on the green.  The perfect green would have no grain and every grass plant would be standing perfectly upright.  Unfortunately that's typically not the case since we use creeping bentgrass as our turf selection on greens in the Northeast.  Just by hearing the name creeping bentgrass it should tell you it likes to grow laterally not so much vertically.  So in order to get the grain out of the greens we use brushes that stand the grass blades upright.  This allows the greens mowers to cut more plant material, which would normally be laying over.

This is a great picture of grain, see the difference in color.  The white color closest in the picture and the dark color  in the back of the picture show different grains.  

Here is a short video demonstrating how the greens get brushed.