With fall arriving, the time to aerify has come as well. All of the greens, tees, and approaches have all been aerified, topdressed, and are on their way to a nice recovery. The greens and tees require an extensive amount of time and effort compared to the rest of the course to keep them in the best playing condition possible. We start on the greens by aerifying with 12 inch long by 3/4 inch wide solid tines, known as a soil reliever. This piece of machinery is pulled with our John Deere tractor that is equipped with turf tires.
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| Soil reliever in action on #2 green |
Behind the soil reliever is a walking aerifier that goes down 3-4 inches and actually pulls a core out of the ground. Our crew then shovels the thousands of plugs into piles and hauls them back to our compost pile where they will sit for a couple of years until they can be re-used as topsoil later on.
After all of the cores are picked up and the debris is blown off, a heavy layer of sand is then applied to the green to fill the many holes. The sand not only relieves compaction, but allows for better drainage in our greens. Our greens are made mostly of soil, so they drain very poorly and hold too much moisture which is a breeding ground for fungus and other diseases. After the sand is applied, we then take a brush that is attached to a cart and drag the green, working the sand into the holes. We repeat the dragging process each day until most of the sand is worked in to the holes so that the healing process will begin. Once all of the sand is mostly gone, a greens mower is sent out to and will pick up even more sand and cut off the long blades of grass that are stood up from the brush. Once this whole procedure is completed, we then begin the same steps on our tees.
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| The walk behind aerifier pulling cores on the putting green, as well as the crew pushing the plugs in the background The crew can't be happier when this task is completed |
As for fairways, we are just doing a double, solid tine aerification that takes up to two weeks to complete if not longer. The first step is using the same soil reliever that was mentioned earlier. This process is new to the fairways, being only the second time it has been performed. It is very time consuming and ties up our strongest tractor, but it is well worth it in the long run. Once it is completed, we then send out a second aerifier on the same tractor that goes 4 inches deep, but the holes are much closer together. If that is not enough, we then follow up the aerification with a topdressing of sand on the fairways as well. Nearly 72,000 pounds of sand will be used during this process. It takes a lot of time, but we will keep the tractor going until there is too much snow or the ground is frozen. The fairways are the only thing left to finish aerifying, besides some ware areas caused from our cart traffic.
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| A great shot of the sand being applied to the fairways This has also cut down on our worm castings over the last year or so |
Hopefully this rather long description helps you understand what is done to the course in the fall to prepare for the upcoming year. With each day of nice weather, it helps the turf heal in and better prepare itself for winter.
