Why do we aerate?

I have gotten more than a few questions on the reasons behind aeration of the greens and, to a lesser extent, the tees and fairways.  The following video does a great job of explaining the reasons.



The main takeaways from this video are:

1) Relieve compaction.

2) Reduce organic matter build-up.

3) Provide passageways for water and oxygen to move through the soil.

The sand top dressing also has the added benefit of smoothing the putting surface.

Aerification of greens

We have completed the aerification of the greens.  Leslie Park did the front 9 greens on Tuesday, September 14th and the back 9 on Wednesday.  If you are curious about the process we use, you can check some of the videos and pictures that I have.

First is the aerator, a Toro Procore 648.  It is self-propelled, 48 inches wide and has 30 3/8 inch tines.  The speed we use puts the tines down every 2 inches.  Here is the machine in action.

Here are the plugs that result

We then blow the plugs into the center of the green to make picking up the plugs easier.



We then pick up the plugs.  We pile the plugs up in our storage area and keep the pile turned over so the grass doesn't grow.  In the spring, we will use the material as we would use topsoil.



Here is a close of the green after we have picked up the plugs.



We then take a greens mower with special cutting units called "verticutters" installed.  These special units vertically mow the grass and basically cut grooves in the playing surface.  This stops the grass from growing along the ground and creates a  more upright plant.  This increases the speed the ball will roll along the green.

Here is a close up of the vericut units.

And a picture of the green after verticutting.

We then spread sand on the green with a machine called a topdresser.  The sand replaces the plugs that we have taken off. 

A picture of the green after the sand is put down.

We then use a large brush to move the sand into the holes.

After we are all done, the holes should be filled and the green should look like this.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I wonder how many words video has saved me?

Aerification

Leslie Park will be aerifying greens beginning on September 14th.  We will be doing the front nine on Tuesday and the back 9 on Wednesday.  We hope to begin with the tees immediately following the greens.

Cartoons can do it, why can't you?

An animation from the USGA on how to repair a ballmark

I won't coment on the quality of the animation.  The information is good.

Why does turf die in the summer?

A short video about what happens to golf course turf under high temperatures.

Stuff I have

I am very protective of "my" cart. It actually belongs to the City of Ann Arbor, but I am on that vehicle almost every single day. I also have a habit of trying to carry many tools and other items that I might need in a day. Trying to take care of 130 acres of grass can put me up to three quarters of a mile a way from the shop, so in order to save travel time, I carry a lot of "junk" with me at all times. Every thing I have with me, I have used more than once.  Here is what was on my cart today.

Starting from the bottom-left, coffee cup (super important), two-way radio, ready-to-use spot weed killer, swiss army knife, white turf paint, multi-tool, tape measure, adjustable wrench, soil thermometer, needle-nose pliers, utility knife, screw driver with interchangeable bits, rope "fib" (allows you to secure rope to itself with out knots), golf multi-tool with ball mark repair tool and soil probe. 

Next row from the bottom, starting at the left, garden pruners, water-proof notebook, flashlight, pen, on/off key for Toro irrigation heads, irrigation tool for taking apart irrigation heads, wire brush, hollow-braid rope, marking paint wand with yellow turf paint, business card holder, "Stimpmeter" (used in conjunction with golf balls and measuring tape to determine green-speed), Teflon tape, electrical tape, o-rings for irrigation heads, ballwasher wrench, ball mark repair tool, golf balls, towel.

Next row, grass trimmer, hose nozzle, spigot for tapping into irrigation system, "quick coupler" for tapping into irrigation system,  irrigation flags, 75 feet of 3/4 inch hose.  Not shown in the picture is the camera that I took the picture with and the 2-way radio that I use to program the irrigation system.

Busy

Happy belated fourth of July!  I have been extremely busy the last couple of weeks (when was the last time I didn't say that?)  My irrigation system has been giving me fits.  We have some sort of problem with the power coming into the station that is causing the computer to shut down the pumps in order to protect them.  For the past month or so, I have been running on one pump.  It only seems to happen when it tries to turn on the second pump.  This is fine, except an irrigation cycle that should take 4 hours takes 8.  If you haven't noticed, we have less darkness than that each night, so I am forced to turn it on earlier than dusk or have it run later than dawn.  Also, when we had that stretch of weather where we had 95 degree days and 30% humidity, my irrigation computer decided it had seen enough and went down.  Not even the blue screen of death, I could not even get it to come on.  To top that all off, I come in last Friday and thanks to George, or resident tee marker/trash/divot guru, I see that we have pythium on our tees.  Pythium is a very nasty fungus that can potentially wipe out turf in a matter of hours.  Luckily, we had a pythium fungicide on the shelf for just such an emergency and the tees are now disease free.

This all comes less than a week before our biggest event of the year, the All-City Golf Championship, which starts this Friday.  I need to get back to work.