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Aeration of Greens Completed...

Today we were able to finish up our spring aeration on our greens. As most of our members know we began the process on Thursday on the greens that suffered the most winter injury, as they were already out of play. We continued Sunday night and into Monday. With the looming forecast of rain, rain and more rain, we opted to Deep-tine and Deep Verticut our greens this spring instead of coring (coring in the rain is a messy process that rarely accomplishes the original goals). Switching to this process allows us to properly prepare a good seedbed for our yearly Creeping Bentgrass inter-seeding program, while still removing a decent amount of organic matter.

The process was as follows:
1. Straight sand topdressing
2. Deep-Tine aerify to a depth of 8 inches
3. Deep Verticut with our Sissis
4. Blow to remove organic matter
5. Dropseed T1 Creeping Bentgrass
6. Straight sand topdress (again)
7. Hand broom the sand into the canopy
8. Roll to smooth
9. Fertilize with an Ammonium Sulphate based greens grade product
10. Lightly irrigate to knock the fertilizer into the canopy

 After this process we installed our permeable covers on the 5 greens (1,4,8,10,12) that we had the most significant damage on as a result of the winter of 2014. The covers will help to insulate during the cold nights that we are experiencing and help push the germination of the bentgrass seed. Utilizing temporary greens during the aeration process is a huge advantage to completing the task in a timely and efficient manner.With the exception of 1, 4, 8, 10 and 12 we will be reopening all greens to play on Tuesday, May 6th. Our membership's patience and understanding is always appreciated during these very crucial cultural practices.

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