This week we began to aerify our fairways with our Bannerman Superject aerifier. This machine is very simple, but it provides huge benefits to the soil and therefore to the turfgrass. This type of aeration slices a hole that reaches up to 6" deep. The tines also twist a little and provide a shatter effect that will allow air, water and therefore roots to reach deeper into the soil. As you can see from the pictures, this is a very non-disruptive process. We can all expect to see this machine out on the golf course periodically throughout the golf season.
The machine is equipped with a roller to minimize disruption.
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)...
Awesome! how deep were you going?
ReplyDeleteWe were able to get it down the full 6", fairways are relatively soft...the process went very well.
ReplyDelete