We receive some interesting challenges over the years. Many of website visitors have thoughtful questions that we might not have considered before. This one might be a more typical question from someone not familiar with field marking operations. Here's the dialogue followed by several suggestions.
"We are a little Chamber of Commerce putting on a fund raising Pasture Putting and Picnic event featuring 9 Miniature Golf holes, each decorated by local businesses. We are going to rent a "lime spreader" machine from AA rentals that use some kind of chalk product, to mark the edges of each "hole". AA rentals has told us they don't sell the chalk or powder or whatever the product is called that goes in this walk behind spreader. I can not find anyone locally who sells the chalk, if that's what it is, or paint. Can you help me? We don't need that much, we only need it to last a day."
Our response:
We don't have any of the "chalk" (calcium carbonate or marble dust) on hand. It will normally run around 10-20 cent a pound or up to $10.00 per 50 pound bag.
Please check with a local baseball or softball program in a nearby community. You'll probably only need 1-2 50 pound bags.
Another option is using an aerosol chalk product. If you don't have a aerosol field striper then you can probably do it by hand unless you want to be really uniform. This product has the same properties as the spreader type chalk, yet it is dispensed like other aerosol paints. When figuring on how much to purchase plan on using one aerosol can per 200 to 300 linear feet.
A little longer lasting water based aerosol product is now available. More and more municipalities are concerned with soil and water contamination so this is another safe solution to consider.
The more traditional aerosol field marking paint may be an option. After the grass has been mowed 2-3 times the residual paint will be clipped off.