Fairway Aerification

Tomorrow we finish our early summer fairway aerification. We began May 4th and completed one to two fairways per day. Tomorrow we will complete the 6th fairway and that will be our last. There are many reasons and benefits to aerification. For us we aerify fairways this time of year for two predominate reasons:

1) Add create channels to allow oxygen to penetrate into the soil. By increasing the amount of oxygen we see an increase in soil temperature and an increase in the microbe activity. The increased microbe activity adds in the breakdown of organic matter in the soil. Organic matter in soil is the type of soil that gets sticky when wet and allows mud to stick to your ball. The increase in soil temperature encourages bermudagrass growth.

2) Aerification also allows sunlight to penetrate the turf canopy to where the bermudagrass shoots are beginning to grow after winter dormancy. Bermudagrass is a sun-loving grass and grows best with maximum sun light. Many agronomists, including me, argue that the biggest killer of bermudagrass is a lack of sunlight.

May is a busy month for the golf course. The days are longer and the weather is perfect, despite what Craig thinks, and therefore we do more rounds of golf this month than any other. Please do your part in keeping the course in great shape by filling divots and fixing ballmarks.

One last thing, if you wonder why I have not posted an entry in the past month please visit- www.laurenhertzing.blogspot.com

Congrats!

Congratulations to those who won their respective flights in the Men's and Senior's Club Championship. Once again it seems as though the golf course stood its' ground. I was pleased with the way the course was presented for the tournament. I felt for three weeks post aerification the greens rolled well and the course firmed up through the weekend to produce championship worthy conditions. I am very fortunate to have such an excellent staff that time and time again steps it up a notch for tournaments.
Moving on to this week. Today we began fairway aerification. Like in years past we will attack one or two fairways a day. By doing this we will have the fairways cleaned up and ready for play by 10 am. This week will be working on the back nine. Next week we will focus our attention to the front. Next week we will be starting play off #10 to allow us more time to work on the fairways prior to play. We conduct our semi annual aerification during the month of May to help encourage our transition to bermudagrass for the summer months. The aerification allows sunlight to penetrate the turf canopy and reach the emerging bermuda grass. In conjunction with aerification we will be applying a granular fertilizer for the bermudagrass and applying a growth regulator that will slow the growth of the ryegrass while not inhibiting the bermudagrass.
In addition to fairway aerification, we will also be verticutting and topdressing greens on Tuesday and Wednesday.