Aeration

 Aerating 9 Fairway

On Monday and Tuesday we were able to aerate all our fairways. Throughout the remainder of the week, we have been doing extra clean-up around the edges, giving the fairways a cut, filling areas with divot mix and adding extra water to help in recovery. This is a process that we like to do when the grass is actively growing so recovery time is minimal. As well, the warm and dry weather helps with our clean up and in the summer we have our highest number of staff to assist with the process. We attempt to get them done over a few days so that disruption to golf doesn’t drag on.

Clean up of Aeration

Our next small tine greens aeration will be on August 24th. This will set up the greens for a busy September with hopefully some great weather. We have decided on a 5-7 week rotation of greens aeration because of the results we have seen in the past. The many benefits include a healthy stand of turf on our greens, effective fertilizer and chemical applications, controlled thatch levels and effective infiltration rates of water during irrigation and rain events. The smaller tines are less disruptive so healing time is minimal. If we leave the greens to long without the aeration they are less responsive and become sealed on top. Gases buildup under the surface that need to be vented on a regular basis.

Due to the age of our greens we remove the cores and back fill with sand. This will modify the top of the soil profile helping with infiltration of water and firming up the surface.

Take a moment and click on the links below that discuss aeration.
 http://tinyurl.com/o78fftc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=863Ix8czcoY

Also look at Core Aeration by the Numbers. This will help explain what our goal is and how we came about putting our program together. We are using ¼” tines at 1.5” x 1.5” spacing (similar to 1” x 2” on articles chart). We are getting close to the 20% that they discuss. If we where to limit the amount of times we aerate we would need to increase the size of our tines and would therefore increase recovery time.

Our tentative schedule for the remainder of the season is as follows,

• August 24^th, Small Tine Greens Aeration
• Early October, Small Tine Greens Aeration
• October, Tee Aeration
• End of season, Deep Tine Aeration
• End of season, Mid Size Tine Aeration (If needed)

Surviving July and Easing into August

The end of July was hot and humid sending the golf course into survival mode as indicated by some off color grass and thinned out areas. The lack of rain during this time has really dried out the turf, but with irrigation and selective hand watering, we were able to keep the necessary areas alive. We have been taking it easy on our greens as much as possible to alleviate unnecessary stress on them. Our cultural practices have been kept at a minimum for this reason.

Irrigation on #8 Fairway

Hand Watering on #18 Green

The beginning of August has been a breath of fresh air. Cooler temperatures both day and night, lower humidity, plenty of sunshine and a couple of rain episodes. This has allowed the turf to come out of survival mode to begin recovery. We have been able to push the greens more and resume our cultural practices such as verticutting with a heavier topdressing. With fairway aeration approaching, the fairways should be healthy going into it and make for a quick recovery if the weather cooperates next week.

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