With aerification coming next week I found this great video explaining in detail the importance of aerification to golf course greens in particular. This process holds true for all of the playing surfaces, but is most critical for maintaining healthy greens. I hope you can take the time to watch the entire video.
We are mixing the aerification process up this year by poking a month earlier than the traditional final week of April. This year’s aerification timing is a test and we hope the soil temperatures will aid in a speedy recovery. This change will allow more healing time for the greens before our annual Member Invitational and will prevent having to close the golf course for a week in the peak of spring. This spring we will be aerifying greens, rough and deep tining fairways. We have been working on the tees and approaches during the winter months to help firm up all surfaces and take advantage of the topdressing that we continue to spread on our bentgrass fairways. Over the course of the past eleven seasons, our aggressive topdressing program has continued to firm up our fairways and aid in drainage in these heavy clay soils.
We will yet again, contract out the cultural practice of dryjecting our greens. Dryjecting is an innovative way to use a high-pressure, water-based injection system that blasts aeration holes through the root zone to fracture the soil, while the patented vacuum technology simultaneously fills holes with amendments. This process in combination with traditional core aerification will continue to relieve compaction, increase water infiltration, reach the root zone with oxygen and amend our soil profile all at the same time. This will help us create a healthy root zone to prepare us for the summer months and tournament style playability on the greens.
The weather forecast looks great, and we will work diligently to ensure a speedy recovery on all playing surfaces.
