Dru Clark said: I would topdress heavy directly after taking the heights down, not before. No sense in mowing all that sand. Take the plant down low and then give a nice topdressing to serve as a growing medium. JMO
Sorry Dru, but logic is not in agreement with this thought process.
By topdressing heavy before lowering them you elevate the soil level reducing the actual HOC already and not stressing the plant. I have done this for over 10 years and find it is the least stressful way to lower the HOC. AS any other time of the year when we are topdressing heavy (aerifying) I always wait until the dew is gone before attempting to mow the greens to reduce the amount of sand being picked up by the reels or rollers. If you have a greens roller this would be a great time to use it. Topdress heavy, let dry, roll them, and then cut them. repeat as needed until you get the desired HOC, reducing the amount of sand you topdress with as the greens fill in.
I personally love growth regulators on the greens but over time have found a few no-no's when dealing with my TifEagle. The first is not to use a growth regulator if you are trying to get areas to fill in faster. While it may seem that this is a great way to make them fill in I have found that the growth regulators effect of TifEagle shortens the nodes which tightens up the plant. this can be counter productive if you have bare areas you want to fill in. the longer distance between the nodes take up space which helps cover bare areas a little quicker. Now if your greens are just a little thin like from verticutting it will work great but you have to keep up the fertility (possibly increasing it) when using the growth regulators. Another No-no is Spraying growth regulator around the same time you are stressing the plant like when you aerifye your greens or right after you verticut your greens. Mine always performs better when applied the week before or at minimum 3 days before. I have over the years made the application 2 days after aerifying my greens and it slowed down the recovery by 3-4 days. When I verticut my greens they tend to brown out to some extent which is from the stress of the heavy verticutting and adding a growth regulator seems to only slow them down further. I will wait 4-6 days after a verticutting before applying growth regulators if I could not get them out the week before.