Venting and verticutting

While we are still a couple of weeks shy of the summer solstice, the temperatures have been warm. Warm temperatures bring a certain tug-of-war for the Grounds department. Greens, tees, and rough, which are cool season turf, can be very stressed during periods of warm weather. The Bermuda grass, however, couldn’t be happier. With this in mind, last week we started our summer maintenance practices of verticutting the Bermuda grass and venting the greens.

Venting, or using needle-tines on the greens, opens the surface for better water and oxygen exchange between the atmosphere and the soil. The tines that we use are ¼” thick, thus producing a very small hole in the green. For more in-depth information regarding the use of needle-tines on greens, read the post on this topic from last June, which can be found here: "Needle-tine aeration". Generally, though, this is a very important cultural practice to perform for stress relief of cool season turf during the warm months.

This small hole is a win-win for us and the golfers. Playability is virtually unchanged after venting a green; however, the effects of the hole in the surface can last for several weeks. So the turf grass benefits from venting, and putting is unaffected. While the process and results are unchanged from last year to this year, our strategy of completing the aeration has changed. Last year, we hoped to be able to complete the entire course in a day. We were wrong. This year, instead of trying to complete all the greens in one day, working through lunch, working around golfers, and still not finishing, we have decided to break the greens into smaller groups and complete a group of greens each week. The groups will rotate every week so over the course of a month every green will be aerated once, just as it was last year by finishing every green in one day at the beginning of the month. However, with the group system, we will finish our 6-7 greens for that week by roughly 10am. This has far less of an impact on play and leaves time for staff members performing the aeration to complete other tasks for the remainder of the day. We are hoping that breaking the task into smaller pieces will be a more effective use of our time, as well as a smaller disruption to golfers.

While we are performing aeration on the greens to help the handle them stress of summer, the opposite is true for the Bermuda grass. As the temperature climbs, the Bermuda grass kicks into gear. The plant begins to grow at its fastest pace. As a result, it is at this time that we begin to verticut the Bermuda grass to remove thatch and slice the stolons of the plant to encourage more growth.  Check out the post from May of this year for a quick refresher on the verticut process and benefits, which can be seen here: "Fairway work". In addition to the fairways, when we verticut Bermuda grass, we also include the Bermuda grass approaches like #4, Bermuda grass tees, and the Bermuda grass soccer field. All told, this is nearly 45 acres of Bermuda grass.

Similar to the needle-tine process on the greens though, this is a time consuming job that is impossible to finish in one regular-hour day. So, applying the same grouping system as we did with greens, we are breaking the fairways and other Bermuda areas into groups. The fairways and approaches will be split into 3 separate groups, and the tees and soccer field will make up a fourth group. Again, each week will be a different group rotated throughout the month and through the summer, and all the same benefits for the members that applied to the greens work apply to the fairway work as well.

While it seems as though we are doing less in a day because we are only doing a third of the greens or fairways, we actually can get more done and not tie staff up to one job all day.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org