Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Summer maintenance

To keep the greens in great shape throughout the growing season, we will Verticut the playing surface and then apply a sand topdressing to smooth out the putting surface.  We apply this cultural practice to our greens every 2-3 weeks.  The vertical cutting will cut through any horizontal shoot growth of the plant which will then promote vertical growth.  We want vertical growth as this will decease the amount of playing surface the ball rolls on.  This will equal faster, smoother greens.  This is a tedious process for our staff but we are able to complete the task with 5 employees in 4 hours.  The benefit of this process will last for a few weeks.


As the tournament season slows down for the first week of July, we took advantage of the nice weather and needle tined all the greens.  The needle tine will relieve compaction, allow water and oxygen to enter the soil and for the soil to release the CO2.  We applied a sand topdressing prior to the needle tine.  We will double roll each green leaving the green in great putting shape.  Once again this is not a easy process for the maintenance staff but the benefit will last until we do it again in early October.