Spring Aeration Completed

Superintendents love it, golfers tolerate it. Spring aeration has been completed on all greens and practice greens. Aeration helps to reduce compaction and thatch buildup, promoting deeper root growth and better water infiltration for more resilient greens through the stressful summer months. We used a double row of 1/4 inch tines on a tight spacing. This removes a lot of material, but the smaller holes should close up relatively quickly. We had fantastic weather on Monday; a bit of rain Tuesday morning slowed things down but it cleared in time to finish topdressing.

Marcelo running the Procore on the 4th green

After punching, the cores were blown into piles and hauled away

Blowing piles on 11

Shoveling up cores on 9

Cleanup after hauling cores

After cores were cleaned up, greens were fertilized and seeded

The final step was to topdress with sand, let it dry, then distribute it into the holes and canopy with the drag brush. Our 18 regulation greens and 4 practice greens were covered with over 29 tons of topdressing sand!

Painted turtle hatched on 13

In a couple of weeks the holes will be closed, and all that sand will be a distant memory as it is incorporated into the profile. In the meantime golfers can help the recovery by diligently repairing ball marks. One side effect of punching all those holes is that surfaces will be soft until things can knit back together. Poa annua will be going to seed in the coming weeks and unrepaired ball marks on greens allow an opportunity for further encroachment into our bentgrass stands.

With aeration behind us, we have begun to remove stump shavings left behind after tree removals in preparation for loaming and seeding. We are also supplementing our in-house irrigation saddle repair with some contract work