GSTG Co., Ltd. Launches ‘Cooling Mat’ for Protecting Korean Grass

[Reporter Lee Eun-hyeon of the Korea Financial Economic Daily] GSTG Co., Ltd. (CEO Lee Hyo-sang), a specialist in artificial grass, announced that it has newly developed and released a cooling mat for natural grass that protects greens during high temperatures.

As the summer heat continues for a long time, reaching temperatures of up to 30 degrees Celsius, golf courses across the country are focusing on course management. Grass species planted on golf courses are largely classified into warm-season and cool-season types according to their optimal growth temperature. Currently, creeping bentgrass is mainly used among the cool-season grasses planted on domestic golf course greens.

In the case of creeping bentgrass, the optimal growth temperature is 15-25℃, and it grows vigorously in spring and fall in Korea, but in the hot and humid summer, it experiences a summer decline, rapidly declining growth, and damage from diseases and pests also increases significantly. This phenomenon of bentgrass growth decline in summer can be said to be a complex stress phenomenon mainly caused by high temperature and humidity, poor drainage, insufficient sunlight, and poor air circulation.

In particular, due to abnormally high temperatures, the course surface temperature rises, causing the grass growth to rapidly deteriorate and, in severe cases, even die. In order to maintain bentgrass in high-temperature stress conditions during summer, it is very important to block strong UV rays and lower the soil temperature of the green surface.

The cooling cover mat developed by GSTG is a natural grass cover mat product that protects grass during high temperatures by alleviating the phenomenon of the cooling mat. The cooling mat uses a ceramic yarn material called ‘Toray Lumipol Yarn’ to block strong sunlight and has excellent heat dissipation ability. In fact, in the results of an experiment conducted by GSTG last summer through a specialized grass research institute, it was confirmed that the soil temperature was lowered by 1~7℃ in all cooling mat-treated areas compared to the untreated areas.

Also, the higher the maximum temperature, the greater the difference in soil temperature between the treated and untreated areas. In the investigation of the effect on soil moisture content in the grass planting area, the soil moisture content was slightly higher in the cooling mat-covered area compared to the untreated area. This shows that the cooling mat cover does not cause soil over-wet conditions and has a negative effect on grass growth. In other words, covering the cool-season grass greens with cooling mats in the summer high-temperature season is judged to be an effective method to alleviate the phenomenon of cool-season grass (bent grass, Kentucky bluegrass) in the summer by lowering the soil temperature and promoting grass root growth. A GSTG official explained, “Our natural grass cooling mat has excellent UV, IR, and VR reflection and blocking functions, and it also has excellent thermal conductivity, so it can quickly release the heat from the course surface. The highly breathable knitted mesh structure allows natural grass to breathe without any problems, and since it is knitted, it has excellent tear strength and does not tear or break easily.” He continued, “It is also lightweight, so it is easy to install, remove, and move, and it has a fixed eyelet that can be easily fixed with a U-shaped pin. The product comes in 5×6m and 10×10m sizes, and custom sizes can also be ordered.”