The rain managed to stay away all week, which was great, as we were able to make progress on getting the fairways aerated. The soil moisture was/is perfect and, as a result, the cores have been perfect. Due to scheduling the last few fairway aerations have been done when the soil moisture wasn't ideal, resulting in cores not pulling in some areas and it is fantastic that all the areas are now done well and we do not have to revisit them.
Below is a sequence of pictures to show what is involved in the process. Due to the threat of rain a few mornings and the tournament on Tuesday I had to ensure everything was cleaned up before the end of each day and as a result I have been moving around the course out of sequence to maximize the amount can be done each day.
Each spring the LedgeRock crew do all our aeration in-house as we have the time to complete it. The August fairway aeration is contracted so it can be completed in one day to ensure the course can be reopened quickly. To give an idea of how long it takes to core a fairway, #1 took appox 3 hours and 7 appox 6.5hrs!!
The next step is to drag the cores with an overturned chain harrow. This breaks the cores up and removes the soil from the thatch and returns it to the canopy, acting as a very light topdressing.
We use two different sweepers. The smaller one is used on tighter areas and when the cores are damp. The bigger vacuum type is used on the larger areas and when the cores are dry (otherwise it clogs up and creates a huge mess!!).
We rent a low profile dump trailer for the ProSweep to dump into so there is no down time having to drive to a dump area.
The next step is to blow the left over debris into a wind-row and re-sweep it. By re-sweeping, it ensures the bentgrass cores stay out of the bluegrass roughs preventing possible contamination and also it ensures the first cut does not damage the mower as much.
The final step is to mow with the groomer turned on, this loosens up any cores that may have been packed into the turf and after one more blow ensures the fairways are 100% clean and will no longer damage the mowers.
Provided the weather stays dry the remaining fairways should be aerated and cleaned up by the middle of next week. The back tee at the range has been aerated, topdressed, seeded and fertilized this week also. The cover helps to warm the soil so it will start to grow quicker. Once it is healed and play can be moved to the top tee, the front tee will be aerated and topdressed.
