Well, today started ugly.....really darn ugly. The skies opened up at 6am as we began day #2 of aeration and the forecast for the day was mediocre at best. Luckily by 7am the rain subsided and we were able to resume our work. Yesterday we were able to aerate and harvest the cores from 12 greens and we finished the remaining 9 greens by 9:30am this morning. Keep in mind that we have 21 total greens when you include our 2 putting greens and 1 chipping green.
We have applied topdressing, the most time consuming portion of the entire aeration procedure, to the greens and are working feverishly to get the material worked into the aeration holes. Once the topdressing is applied, we must wait for it to dry before we can even attempt to move the material into the holes. This drying time can be anywhere from 45 minutes to 4+ hours, depending on weather conditions. With the overcast conditions we were experiencing this morning, it took about 4 hours.
Once dry, the material is dragmatted with a steel dragmat to work the bulk of the material into the open holes. The steel mat must be used with caution as excessive use of it will cause turf injury. Immediately after dragmatting with the steel mat, we then dragmat the material with a coco fibre mat that is less stressful on the turf to continue to work remaining material into the holes. Last, but certainly not least, we use high-powered tow behind blowers to move any remaining material over the putting surface to fill any holes that have yet to be filled.
We have applied topdressing, the most time consuming portion of the entire aeration procedure, to the greens and are working feverishly to get the material worked into the aeration holes. Once the topdressing is applied, we must wait for it to dry before we can even attempt to move the material into the holes. This drying time can be anywhere from 45 minutes to 4+ hours, depending on weather conditions. With the overcast conditions we were experiencing this morning, it took about 4 hours.
Once dry, the material is dragmatted with a steel dragmat to work the bulk of the material into the open holes. The steel mat must be used with caution as excessive use of it will cause turf injury. Immediately after dragmatting with the steel mat, we then dragmat the material with a coco fibre mat that is less stressful on the turf to continue to work remaining material into the holes. Last, but certainly not least, we use high-powered tow behind blowers to move any remaining material over the putting surface to fill any holes that have yet to be filled.
Here are some photos of this process:
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| topdressing #1 green |
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| dragmatting #1 green with steel mat |
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| dragmatting #1 green with coco fibre mat |
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| blowing #1 green |
Unfortunately, the weather forecast for tomorrow is not looking good at this time. We all know how quickly that can change though so we've got our fingers crossed. We are currently on schedule for finishing up the aeration process on Thursday, but if tomorrow's maintenance is rained out, we may or may have not change our anticipated reopening date. Depending on what is accomplished tomorrow and Thursday, we could be forced to have some temp greens in play on Friday as we wrap things up.
Please check back tomorrow for further updates!
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