AERATION Every Greenkeeper's objective is todevelop a healthy turf and soil profile on their golf course to provide thebest possible playing surfaces at all times to members and visitors alike.Inevitably, the changing climatic conditions and constant golfing traffic willprovide greenkeepers with some major challenges in maintaining surfaces attheir best. It is desirable to maintain a freedraining soil profile across all key areas of the course; greens, tees, fairwaylanding zones etc. to encourage movement of water from the playing surfaceswhen required and to create the correct soil environment for chosen grassspecies to flourish. Key to this is the management of available air spaceswithin the soil profile. Compacted soils with little air space will not allowroots to develop and grow to suitable depths to sustain a consistently healthyturf. Where the available air spaces fill with water roots, despite requiringthis water, will stagnate and die back impacting on the turf quality. A regular annual programme ofaeration is a critical course maintenance practice to mitigate against thepotential of: • soilcompaction • smearing /sealing of playing surfaces • thatchaccumulation • restrictionof root growth • flooding intimes of heavy rain • forced course closures THE SOLUTION Aeration practices include solidtining, hollow coring and slitting. These practises: • Alleviatesoil compaction • Encouragestrong and deep root development • Increases permeabilitythrough the soil profile i.e. better drainage across all treated areas of thegolf course • Increasedresistance of grass species to drought periods • Creates the right environment toencourage establishment of the finer grasses Year round aeration such asmicro-tining during the playing season often goes un-noticed by golfers, yetprovides substantial benefit to the health of the turf in combination withregular mowing, verticutting, rolling, turf ironing, and top dressing. COURSE MAINTENANCE WEEK Tuesday 3rd September – Friday 6thSeptember During our maintenance week we will be carrying out a numberof aeration practises. These all have similar benefits, as outlined in theAeration article, and have been chosen specifically to provide the maximumbenefits to our greens. The work to be undertaken is as follows: · Solid tining/verti-draining to a depth of 10-12inches using 19mm solid tines · Solid tining/verti-draining to a depth of 8inches using 12mm solid tines · Filling the holes with sand/soil top-dressing · Solid tining to a depth of 20mm to create ‘seedpots’ using 16mm solid tines · Application of 200kg of fescue grass seed · Brushing the seed and any remaining topdressinginto the seed pots · Dimple seed the surface with 40kg of BrowntopBent seed · Roll the greens with the turf iron As we hire some of the equipment in to carry this work it iscrucial that we are as efficient as possible and that delays are kept to aminimum. For this reason we ask that the members are as considerate as possiblewhen encountering the greens staff working. This may be using the temporarygreens or even picking up your ball if we are on the green and moving on to thenext hole. The quicker we get the work done the quicker the greens start torecover! Thank you in advance for your understanding over the nextweek. Simon White Course Manager
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