GMS at Pueblo del Sol C.C.: 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.