Green aeration

[Tgolfa]

Just a question about airation. The greens on my course were airated 2 weeks ago... still not recovered since the last time they were done about 5 weeks before. The holes were almost big enough to push your little finger into both times... no top dressing either time. No rollering greens. I understand airation is essential part of green maintainable but this is spoiling our golf for months at a time. Any thoughts ? 

[dennyjones]

Welcome to TST.   We're glad you found us.   

I believe it's unusual there would not be any top dressing.   

[Tgolfa]

Head ground staff being lazy?? Have found them not easy to approach. As have most members! 

Just want to know if there is a genuine reason before I put my size 9 s in it !! 

[DaveP043]

4 minutes ago, Tgolfa said:

Head ground staff being lazy??

If they're lazy, they don't do the aeration at all.  Since they've done it twice in a short time period, I'd guess that there's a specific issue that they're trying to address.  In our area, this is prime grass-growing weather, so this is a good time to plant new seed, and a good time for greens to heal.  If its me, I'd ask about it, hoping to learn something.

[Tgolfa]

As I said ground staff are not approachable to the extent the head grounds man has complained to the owners of the club and asked that certain members stop badgering him!!!  

This is the 4th time this year the greens have been poorly top dressed or not dressed at all. 

 

 

[David in FL]

13 minutes ago, Tgolfa said:

As I said ground staff are not approachable to the extent the head grounds man has complained to the owners of the club and asked that certain members stop badgering him!!!  

This is the 4th time this year the greens have been poorly top dressed or not dressed at all. 

 

 

So ask the GM or the owner.

It might also be worth mentioning that you find the superintendent unapproachable, at least to the point where he won't at least respond to a simple politely phrased question.  Assuming it was politely phrased...  

[SG11118]

Where are you located?  I don't exactly have an answer for you.  Our greens just got aerated (deep tine) this week with very little topdressing in preparation for winter.  The head greens keeper believes that the greens make it through the winter better if the holes aren't filled with sand.  I'm going to push for topdressing to fill the holes in spring to speed up recovery.  Up until a few years ago we'd aerate twice in the fall like you mentioned.  The first time it was topdressed to fill the holes and the second time was deep tined without sand to "shock" the turf to help it prepare for winter.

[Groucho Valentine]

Five weeks in an unusually long time for an aeration to heal. Shouldn't take any longer than 7-10 days if the greens are healthy with decent weather. Maybe there is a disease in them. 

[phillyk]

This doesn't really make sense to me. The points of aeration are to let the ground breath by getting rid of thatch and to replace the dirt with sand so that water continues to run off easier because the thatch wont grow as thick. Hence why some/most courses top dress once a month or even once a week. When you don't fill in the holes, your letting soil compact to the same degree as before and the greens will always need to be cored multiple times.

Courses these days are switching to other methods that may not core at all because they've been top dressing for 30yrs+ and already have a good base.   Which means quick turn around and play continues as normal without hinderance. 

@Tgolfa see if you can talk to another courses super and ask them about it. Maybe its a regional practice, disease, who knows. 

[iacas]

5 hours ago, phillyk said:

This doesn't really make sense to me. The points of aeration are to let the ground breath by getting rid of thatch and to replace the dirt with sand so that water continues to run off easier because the thatch wont grow as thick.

Aeration's primary goal is to provide places for the grass roots to grow. A super told me once "grass doesn't grow in soil, it grows in the air gaps between soil particles."

So the primary goal is to provide more air spaces. Less compact soil. Sand helps the greens heal a bit more quickly, while making the soil more sandy (i.e. small rocks have more little air spaces between them than clay or other types of "soil" made of dead or decaying material).

---

Anyway… yeah, it's pretty odd that they'd aerate again after aerating barely a month ago.

But they probably have a reason. Ask them?

P.S. Aeration holes of the size you describe are fine.

[caniac6]

We used to punch twice in the spring. Once early spring, and then late spring. We would usually use larger plugs in the early one. We always top dressed and rolled the greens. The only reason I could see to leave the holes open would be if the greens were holding a lot of water, and they were trying to dry them a bit. That being said, they shouldn't leave them open more than a few days. I don't know where you are located, but, depending on the temps, they might be slow to recover this time of year. It is a bit late here in NC. 

[Kalnoky]

8 hours ago, Groucho Valentine said:

Five weeks in an unusually long time for an aeration to heal. Shouldn't take any longer than 7-10 days if the greens are healthy with decent weather. Maybe there is a disease in them. 

Yes. Everyone here aerated about two weeks ago and it is playable now. 

[Buckeyebowman]

12 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

If they're lazy, they don't do the aeration at all.  Since they've done it twice in a short time period, I'd guess that there's a specific issue that they're trying to address.  In our area, this is prime grass-growing weather, so this is a good time to plant new seed, and a good time for greens to heal.  If its me, I'd ask about it, hoping to learn something.

 

12 hours ago, SG11118 said:

Where are you located?  I don't exactly have an answer for you.  Our greens just got aerated (deep tine) this week with very little topdressing in preparation for winter.  The head greens keeper believes that the greens make it through the winter better if the holes aren't filled with sand.  I'm going to push for topdressing to fill the holes in spring to speed up recovery.  Up until a few years ago we'd aerate twice in the fall like you mentioned.  The first time it was topdressed to fill the holes and the second time was deep tined without sand to "shock" the turf to help it prepare for winter.

As there are developed new types of grasses there come new ways to care for them. At our local Donald Ross track, they aerated the greens shortly after Labor Day. My buddy went to play there a few days later, and they let him play 18 for 10 bucks! He wondered what was up and found out that that the greens (as well as fairways and rough) had been freshly aerated and top dressed. He griped to high Heaven!

I went out to join his Sister and her girlfriend for nine holes about 2 weeks later. They were only going to play the front 9 on the North course, so I got there early and was able to play the back nine first, since I wanted to play 18. The greens were beautiful! Completely healed, and putting beautifully! Great job by the grounds crew!

[colin007]

Top dressing is the exception to the rule 'round these here parts. You'd be lucky not to find the cores piled in the middle of the fairway.

[hdcp2]

There is never a reason to leave the holes open in the greens after aeration. There is three main reason to aerate and all of them require the holes to be completely filled with sand. Do a google search and there are thousands of articles on the reasons and methods of doing a successful aeration. The USGA website has a number of articles pertaining to this subject and the importance of doing a good job of it to heal the greens as quickly as possible. If the soil temp is warm enough the greens should heal in no more than two weeks and if the soil temp is not warm enough the aerator should stay in the shop. If some guy is telling you that it is good for the greens to leave the holes open he doesn't have a clue and should be fired before he does any more damage to your course. I don't know where these ideas come from because they don't come from any science or research that has been done by any reputable organization. Greens have been aerified for many, many years and there really isn't anything that is done that keeps the greens unplayable for as long as possible. I would not be happy to belong to a golf course that does things that make the course crappy when there are techniques to use that put things back in shape very quickly. Good luck, you are going to need it.

[phan52]

I'm in the Mid-Atlantic and we core aerated and top-dressed our greens in late August and they were rolling pretty true in about ten days and were almost fully healed in 2 weeks. We thin tine aerate them in the spring and lightly top dress them pretty regularly to get more sand in them, as the golf course is over 100 years old and can get pretty compacted. You know it is working when you fix a ball mark and there is a decent amount of sand in the divot. Our greens are pretty good for an old course. Fairways are a different story. We have three completely rebuilt fairways to USGA standards due to a flood mitigation project, as part of our course is in a low valley. It would be nice if they were all like that. All it takes is money, right?

Edited October 24, 2017 by phan52