Aerification of Greens, Fairways and Tees

We kicked off the first full week of March with everybody's favorite - core aerification of greens. Although core aerification upsets many golfers by temporarily diminishing putting surface quality, the much needed disruption results in a season long gain for healthy turf. Aeration helps reduce levels of thatch and organic matter, relieves soil compaction, increases soil oxygen and stimulates healthy turf growth. We used a 5/8" x 6.5" long side eject tine at a 4" depth and a 1.5" x 1.5" spacing grid. We used the Toro pro sweeper to vacuum up the plugs and used backpack blowers to clean off any left over debris. We then top-dressed the greens with USGA sand (90 tons) and brushed to evenly fill holes to surface. We rolled the greens(two directions) the rest of the week to help smooth surface irregularities and to help push sand down into the holes(along with irrigation). On Friday, after completing the aerification process on greens, we applied our final turf amendments- gypsum and fertilizer. We use gypsum to aid in improving soil structure by opening up pore space and increasing air movement(relieves soil compaction) and the fertilizer will help speed up the recovery and growth of the turf.

After finishing up the greens portion of aerification, the next two weeks we jumped right into punching the fairways, tees and surrounds. With the weather turning quite a bit colder and with rain and a heavy wind advisory in the forecast we decided to go to solid tines for the fairways and surrounds and to pull cores on the tees. On fairways and surrounds we used a 1" x 10.5"(L) solid tine at a depth of 4.5" - 5.5". On tees we pulled cores with a 5/8" x 6.5"(L) tine and a 2" x 2" spacing grid. We then seeded, sanded and brushed to level and fertilized.

We also decided to continue our verticutting program on tees and approaches. The verticutting thins out turf and helps reduce thatch and promotes lateral and vertical turf growth.  

GREENS

                             Toro Pro Core #1 green

                           Toro Pro Core #1 green

                            Toro Sweeper #1 green

                             Toro Sweeper

                           

      

                            Brushing in sand

             A much needed cool drink of water!  

  #3 green First mow @ .125 ( 8 days post aerification) 

 #3 green First mow @ .125 ( 8 days post aerification) 

#12 green First mow @ .125 (8 days post aerification)

#15 green First mow @ .125 (8 days post aerification)

#12 green @ .120  (12 days post aerification)

Light topdress and brush (42 days post aerification)

FAIRWAYS

    Super cold and ominous start to fairway aerification

  Triumphant arch, that fill'st the sky when storms prepare to part!  -Thomas Campbell

Second week punching fairways saw much improved weather!

TEES & APPROACHES

Verticutting #16 Tees (2 Directions) 

                        Early start on Tees

                  Tees: aerified & verticut   

Tees: seeded, topdressed, brushed and fertilized

Verticutting #6 approach(2 Directions)

                    

 #6 approach: aerified, verticut(2 directions) and blown

                          

January and February wrap up

It has been a rather bizarre winter here at Pueblo del Sol with the heavy snow in late December, more snow and rain with heavy fog through the first 10 days of January and some light snow mixed with rain in February.....and really just some unfriendly temperatures. The average high for the month of January through our weather stations was 60 degrees. The low average for the month was 30 degrees. In February the average high temp actually dropped to 58 and the low came in at 33. With these cold temps most of our cool season turf has stayed in winter dormancy, (the yellowish-brown-green color that you see)the plants way of preserving energy awaiting soil temps to rise.

Late December Snow

Jan 2

Heavy fog rolling in.......Stay on the road. Keep clear of the moors!!! :)

Skipper's FIRST day at work and the last day OF ACTUAL work.....  :)

We have had more than a few irrigation repairs/issues the last two months. We had a deteriorated gasket on a 10" main line valve at the pump station on #8, six lateral line breaks and numerous leaking irrigation heads. Some of the leaking heads are because of older worn out internal valves in the sprinkler case(that need replacement) and some are because of the cold weather and usually stop leaking when they start getting used more. The majority of our lateral line breaks can be attributed to tree roots.  

Leaking 10" valve #8 rough( rotted gasket)

 Large tree root that broke pipe #1