Highlights of Aerification Day One

It's been a chilly start to aerification today, but we are making great progress thus far on Monday.  Here are some pictures and explanations of all that we have going on:

Greens:

The process on greens began with the practice of Deep-Tinning with a piece of equipment known as the Verti-Drain to create a hole 7 inches deep to oxidize the soil and create a channel to introduce sand deeper into the growing media for root stimulation.

The tines being used are 3/4 inch at 3 inch spacing.

The next step was to pull cores to remove thatch and organic material at a depth of 3-3 1/2 inches.

This is a time consuming process, as all cores are pushed to the collar for removal.

We are using 5/8 inch tines at a 2 inch spacing.

Fairways:

Outside of greens, we began the process of slicing (spiking) our fairways.  Slicing fairways is a great way to alleviate the negative impacts of compaction from cart and mower traffic.  Over time, compaction tightens up the soil and reduces the ability of the turf to produce long healthy roots.  This practice will allow water, nutrients and oxygen to get into the root zone more effectively.

The process creates a slit about 2 1/2 inches long to a depth of about 2 inches. 

I'm please with our pace thus far today, at nightfall.....I would expect for us to have all greens verti-drained and poked.  The clean-up process should be around 12 or 13.  The front nine should be complete on the fairway slicing as well.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we plan on starting to Topdress greens right out of the gates and finish up cleaning cores on the greens.  Once greens are complete we will go right into pulling cores on Tees.

Stay tune for updates each day on our progress.  Thanks for your continued support and cooperation towards this paramount process towards the success of our plant health!