Greens Aerification

On Tuesday of this week we went out and aerified our greens with 1/4 inch side eject tines.  With all of the rain that we have been getting this month, it is very important to open our bentgrass greens up as often as we can.  This allows our greens to "breathe" and get important air down into our root system.  Over the summer, we try to do this process once a month to help with the heat of the summer and it also helps with any excessive compaction that we might get with all of our equipment being on our greens (greens roller, mowers, topdressers, sprayers, etc).  Tuesday we did pull a small 1/4 inch core when usually we just use a solid tine.  With the extreme rainfall and cooler temps, we went ahead and pulled some material out that will also help with any algae spots that we are starting to see on our greens from the rain.  We followed up this aerification on Wednesday with a fungicide application that focused on Algae and patch diseases.  Over the next 4 months, we will be spraying some type of fungicide every 14-21 days to help prevent any diseases that we might get due to the heat and humidity.  On the bright side, it looks like the rain might be coming to an end on Saturday.  We are hoping for a dry week next week so we can get some things mowed out for The Gusher coming up next weekend.  

Greens Edging and Topdressing

Before this last rain came in, we were busy doing some things around the course.  On Monday we worked on getting our greens edged.  This process helps with keeping the edge of our greens between the Bentgrass and Bermuda crisp and helps keep any Bermuda grass runners from contaminating our greens. This is something that we try to do at least every 2 weeks to maintain that edge the way we want it.  Our process is usually marking the edge with a dotted line, edging with our walk behind edger and blowing off any debris that the edging leaves.

On Tuesday, we topdressed our greens with a light layer of sand and also fertilized our collars in preparation for the coming rain.  Topdressing greens is a very important part of what we do here.  This process helps us keep a firm and smooth surface.  We try to do this every 10 to 14 days.  All depending on the weather and how much growth we are getting at the time.  We will topdress the green, broom, and water.  We have two 5 foot walking brooms that our crew use during this process.  Brooming is important because it helps get the sand down into the canopy where it belongs so our mowers don't pick up more than they have too.  Using these walk brooms keeps us from having to get a cart on our greens which keeps the stress down and eliminates 99% of any bruising that might occur.  Attached are some pictures that we took of these practices.