Friday, September 16, 2011
Aerification, it's scary sometimes
The darkness is useful in keeping our nerves settled. When it gets light enough to see what we're really doing to the greens, a little bit of anxiety sets in. I've gotten used to the result of the aggressive quad tine aerification, but it was Craig's first time. I saw the look on his face on the tenth green and it said, "Uh oh, did we just ruin the greens?"
We use the Toro Procore 648 with a ten tine block, 2 rows of 5 each. The holes are very close together and the surface will be pulled upward, anywhere between a 1/4 inch and 1 inch. The greens go from being perfectly smooth to looking like a miniature mogul course. It gets even worse when we start to pick up the plugs and every footprint and tire track becomes a depression.
Here's a look at a green that has been aerified, cleaned, fertilized, and topdressed. On the left, you can really see all the footprints and tire tracks from the walk blower, fertilizer spreader, seeder, and topdresser. On the right, it looks much better after being spun with a broom and rolled down by my cart's tires.
Our closed day of aerification is an all day battle just to get finished before dark. The next few days, the work continues with hand brooming, moving around sand, and lots of rolling. Sometimes we do all these things at once in a dusty, post-aerification symphony.
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