Greens Update

The greens are recovering very well from aerification.  The picture below was taken on Thursday morning.  They are still a little bumpy and only rolling in the 8 1/2 to 9 range, but they are making huge strides every day.  We will continue to work the height of cut down as they progress.

Spring Greens Aerification

We began our spring greens aerification on March 5, one week ago today.  We were blessed with good weather for most of the week and things went very well.  As we do most years, we tweaked the process a little this year...

We started out by core aerifying with .5" inside diameter tines on a 1.60" by 1.87" spacing, which allowed us to remove approximately 6.59% of the surface area of the greens.

  a green immediately after core aerification and cleanup

Following the core cleanup, we topdressed the greens very heavy and brushed them one time with a pull behind brush.  After that we aerified again, with .5" solid tines this time, on a 2" by 2.5" spacing, which impacted approximately 3.93% of the surface area.  We were able to achieve over 4.5" of depth with the solid tines, which allowed us to create channels 2" deeper into the greens profile than we did with the coring tines.  The picture above was taken following the solid tine aerification.

Following the solid tine aerification, we used shop brooms to filter the sand down into the channels that were created.  Filling the channels with sand helps the soil retain air space, which is important in the movement of air, water, and gases in the soil profile.

After we finished hand-brooming greens, we made a pass over them with the pull behind brush to help even the sand on the surface.  We are very pleased with the finished product!