Fairway Aeration

"The greens seem to be recovering very well!! Congratulations to you and your team. Any plugs you can share in regards to the health and progress of the fairways?

Thanks for all your efforts and your information"


This comment was left on the bottom of my last post, Greens Update, Flag Locations, and Greens Speed, and is a great question. Most of the information I have shared over the last few weeks has been related to the recovery of the greens, but our work hasn't been limited to that aspect of the course. Anyone who has been to course has seen the damage from the winter, but I'll itemize the damage for clarity.

Due to the ice, the loss of turf on the fairways was  roughly 60 percent. In terms of area that's about 15 acres or 650,000 square feet of close mowed turf. Most of the turf injury occurred in the low lying areas where the snow was shallow and ice subsequently formed during the melt around Christmas time.

The process is as follows;

Aerate to create seed holes

The video below is of our 864 Toro Aerator using solid tines to create seed holes on the fairways.  Fortunately due to early winter, the holes from the previous fall aeration were not filled in and we were able to utilize them as seeding receptacles, as well as the new ones created this spring. For our second seeding this summer we used solid tines as the cause less interruption then pulling aeration cores.

Seed

The seeding process was pretty simple.  We calibrated our seed applicator for four pounds of seed per 1000 square feet and applied manually to minimize loss and improve accuracy.  This was a very labour intense procedure and the guys did a great job on all 15 acres.  Here are Conner and AJ on 15 fairway around mid May.

Topdress to cover seed and fill holes

The topdressing process is pretty straight forward. We use our Toro MH400 material handler to distribute the sand as evenly as possible over the fairways.  Because of the large amount of sand going out, about 400 tonnes when finished, this process is time consuming and can effect play.  Generally if the nines are reversed, its because we are fairway topdressing and trying to minimize interaction with play.

Our spring seeding netted some very good results.  We saw a marked improvement from the onset of spring compared to today.  As of last week we began the process all over again to aerate the fairways and seed the weak areas. Below is the beginning of 16 fairway, a weak spot we seeded a week ago.




   Please help us by not driving on the fairways if possible, use the rough and cart paths when convenient to do so.  Please also respect the placement the wooden barriers on the course, they are there to direct the traffic into certain areas and minimize concentrated compaction.  We try to move the barriers on a regular basis to alter the traffic patterns because the cart traffic is so heavy.   Each cart weighs about 1500 pounds and with golfers and equipment, that becomes closer to a ton. If each cart makes only one trip a day that's 45 carts each day, and 45 tons in the same spot. Every day for the summer. Here are some photos from just one days traffic.

While not perfect, we are making headway considering the devastating spring. Here are some before and after media.  The video is of 16 fairway early May and again July 7.  The photo is of ten fairway around same dates. 

Greens Update, Flag Locations, and Green speed

Now that July is here and the weather is better, we are seeing improvements in the density of turf in the greens.  With the stronger turf we will revert to practices that you are accustom to seeing on a regular basis.  Our flag system will return to at least 15 of the greens, as four, six and eight are still a bit thin to use the whole green.

This is a turf plug from the weak area on eight.  I was pleased to see the density of the roots at this stage, but still not comparable to the healthy plug below.

  Plants use roots as storage devices for stressful times and with a diminished root mass the plants are less likely to handle foot traffic, mowing and general play.  Add to that the bumpy playing condition in the weak areas and we have chosen to keep the flags in healthier areas of those greens for the next little while.

Our flag system is as follows;
Red/white for the front of the green, Black/white for the middle and Blue/white for the back portion of the green.  Last year there was some confusion of the the blue and black at a distance, so we increased the white portion of the black flag to help differentiate between the two.

One question I get asked a lot is when will the green speed increase. There are a lot of factors that affect the speed at which a ball rolls on a green.  Height of cut has probably the most effect, as the shorter the turf is the less resistance on the ball.  Due to the damage on the greens this spring we started out the year mowing our greens at .200 thousands of an inch (.250 is a quarter inch for reference), to aid in recovery. We had intended on lowering the height last week but with the extreame heat we held off, as it can be stressful process. Once the heat had abated we began the process of lowering the height of cut, or HOC.  Here's how that works.

This is the gauge we use to set the height on the cutting reels. The gauge works by measuring the distance from the bottom of the steel dome to plate under my fingers. The left photo is where we started the year at .200. The right is the target height, .120. Clearly not a lot of distance, but a huge difference in speed.

Below is a photo of one of our cutting heads.  In the picture it is upside down, and the two rollers would normally sit on the green as the unit mowed.  The blade under my thumb is called a bed knife and the series of blades under my forefinger are the cutting reel. During operation the reel turns under hydraulic pressure and catches the grass against the bed knife. We adjust the height of cut by moving the rollers up or down to increase or decrease the distance of the bed knife to the ground.

Our typical summer height is about .120, and as of Friday last week we were down to .155. On Monday we dropped by .007 and will do so again on for Thursday morning to take us to .140.  We will remain at that height until next Monday when we will continue the process but at smaller increments.  This will dramatically increase the greens speed.  There are other aspects of our maintenance program that affect greens speed. I will cover them in a later post but for now expect an increase is speed over the next week or so based on the reduced height of cut.  Enjoy your day out there!