Today we aerified the greens, so I thought I would give you a play by play on what and why we make a mess of the greens twice a year. First of all, this is not our favorite thing to do, as it is a lot of work, and really messes up the greens for a couple weeks. However it is a necessary evil.
We start by running the core aerifier over the greens. This machine pulls plugs of thatch and compacted soil from the greens. The plugs are 5/8 across by 3.5 inches deep and are spaced a couple inches apart.
Then all the plugs are pushed to the edge of the green, picked up and hauled away.
Then we apply gypsum(calcium sulfate)and fertilizer. The gypsum helps displace sodium in the soil. The fertilizer we applied today was 0-0-50(potassium sulfate) which is for heat, drought and wear tolerance. We will continue to add potassium throughout the summer. Last Monday we applied a balanced greens grade fertilizer containing 10 percent nitrogen, 4 percent phosphorus and 20 percent potassium to start growth and helps recover faster from the aerification process.
Next sand topdressing is applied at a rate to make sure all the holes are filled and there is extra to fill any low irregularities in surface smoothness on the greens. Sand is used as it does not compact as much as soil based topdressings. This allows for better air and water movement through the soil and deeper root depth. Sand topdressing also helps reduce thatch on greens. A build-up of thatch would prevent water from penetrating the surface, causing localized dry spots.
The sand is then dragged to move it into the holes and low spots. This creates a smoother putting surface for the entire year. We will continue daily dragging until the sand has worked into the soil and thatch of the turf.
Finally we water in the fertilizers and sand. The water also helps work the sand into the soil and turf canopy as well as dissolves the fertilizer allowing it to be used by the turf plants and the gypsum allowing it to displace the salt particles in the soil.
All in all it is a long hard day of work beginning at 6:30 am and still going strong at 3:45 pm. We should finish in the next couple of hours. However, if these tasks were not performed in the spring and fall, the greens would suffer with compaction, reduced air and water movement, localized dry spots, and other additional stresses causing more fungal activity and loss of turf throughout the year. So please bear with us the next couple of weeks while the greens recover, so the golf course can be enjoyed this summer.
