Well, we beat the rain. We were able to core aerify our putting greens in two directions. The first direction was completed on Monday and the plugs were cleaned up Monday night. We spent the rest of the day Monday and most of the day Tuesday topdressing, brushing and watering sand into the holes left from aerification. This is the most difficult and yet the most important part of the process. If these holes are not properly back filled with sand, they will collapse and not serve their true purpose. These channels of sand allow water infiltration as well as oxygen and gas exchange. They also allow areas for roots to grow. The second aerification was completed and cleaned up yesterday. These new holes will be topdressed and brushed in after the greens dry out a little. This double aerification disturbs roughly 17% of the greens surface. Our fall aerification disturbs between 4 and 5%. These two aerifications gets us to the magic >20% disturbed surface that research knows we need to stay ahead of thatch development. I know this is hard to believe but this is the math.
First Aerification
Tine Size = 1/2 inch
Spacing = 1.5 inches x 1.33 inches
Holes per Square Foot: 72
Second Aerification
Tine Size = 1/2 inch
Spacing = 2 inches x 1.33 inches
Holes per Square Foot: 54
Total Disturbance = 9.8% + 7.3% = 17.1%
In total we pulled 13.2 million cores and replaced these cores with 100 tons of sand.
Fun stuff aside, here are some pictures:
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| Aerifying #9 Green for the second time with our Toro 648 ProCore |
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| Topdressing #13 green with sand after cores have been removed |
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| Brushing Sand into Holes, We hand water the sand in after this to make sure hole are full of sand |
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| Rolling Greens with 1.5 ton roller to smooth out surface |
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| Second Aerification |
