Skip to main content

Core Aeration of Tees and Fairways

In an effort to control our thatch levels in our Tees and Fairways we will be beginning core aeration of these areas shortly after the Labour Day weekend. Thatch or Organic Matter is a byproduct of healthy turf grass. The season of 2014 has certainly lent itself to the production of very healthy turf. We core aerate our fairways every September as the weather is typically better and the days are cooler, which helps us avoid drought stress of newly cultivated turf. We will attempt to complete 2-3 fairways per day weather permitting.
The process is as follows:
1.Core aerate the entire fairway
2. Once dry, a steel matt is used to break the soil from the cores.
3. With the use of 2-3 blowers, we blow the debris into the middle of the fairway.
4. We then use a sweeper to collect the debris and dispose of the material at our dump area.
5. We then dry mow the fairways to clean up any remaining debris.

Tee aerification is a much quicker task due to size. Weather permitting, we will complete a similar process in one day.

We will do our best not to impact play, but this is a very important cultural practice that allows us to maintain good quality fairway and tee conditions throughout the golf season. As always our members' patience is appreciated.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Finish Grading on #2 & #12 Tees

With the great weather that we have had the last two days, we were able to get the tees shaped and all of the tee mix out to the tees. In this picture here, Derek Vergeer (our contractor) is finish grading #2 Tee to be ready for sod. Unfortunately the forecast is for rain the next couple of days and could hold us up for a bit. We are doing out best to complete these projects in a timely manner, of course with this blog we will keep you updated.

Greens Cultural Management Practices Schedule

The fall is a great time to perform a number of necessary cultural practices. Our goal is to amend the upper portion of the greens surface with enough sand to help insulate the crown through the winter as well as removing and diluting organic matter. Below you will find a schedule of cultural practices that we aim to complete before the covers go on and the snow flies!!! Wednesday, Sept. 30th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt Tuesday, Wednesday October 13/14-Course Closure full core aeration with heavy topdressing. October 19th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt October 26th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt November 2nd- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt November 9th- Deep Verticut, followed by a sufficient topdressing. November 16th- Post Course Closure, Heavy topdressing followed by Deep tine aeration. Of course this is all in hope that the weather cooperates...happy fall!

Golf Course Update

As our season slowly comes to a end our department has been working away at year end projects. We installed drainage in a few areas of the practice range and short game area. These areas were perpetually wet and caused turf and aesthetic issues. We have also been chipping away at the bunkers on #17, smoothing out the faces and recreating the grass edges. These bunkers suffered some severe frost heaving in the faces during the winter after they were built. Our team has removed a number of trees and brush from around our maintenance facility to allow some expansion of our operation. We are working away at clearing space to install aggregate bins and sufficient staff parking. This will also allow delivery trucks and semi's to access our facility without any issues. We are also removing the fallen trees and brush from the woodlot on the right side of #16 fairway. This is a challenging area to work as it is a peat bog and remains wet even in the hottest and driest of summers (like 2010)...