Why Not ?

Its March 4th, 70 degrees, why shouldn’t I be aerifying fairways? In the last week as the temperatures have continued to climb and the grass is beginning to green up, now seems like the perfect time to start the aerification process.

We normally aerify the golf course twice a year in the spring and fall with the second week of April being our target time for spring aerification. With everything that is going on with the irrigation installation, I thought that bumping up the timing of aerification would help with the overall recovery to the grass areas.

Last fall we noticed that some of the areas in which lateral pulls were done, the recovery was slower due to additional tearing of turf due not being completely healed from fall aerification. In many cases these areas were found in the fairways where a Graden was run deeply to remove thatch. As the laterals were pulled across the fairways numerous turf chicklets were dislodged and made for a slower recovery to the pull lines.

I thought we would have better luck this spring by aerifying rather than running the Graden over the fairways in efforts of keeping the turf together during this highly disruptive process. Laterals are not scheduled to begin until the beginning of April and by that time the fairways will be fully recovered from aerification and not cause any additional delays in recovery from pulling.

Aerifying The Fairway
Breaking Up The Plugs
Blowing Off The Thatch