“In my opinion using too big a tine on soil greens, at too great a depth, can further destroy your soil structure and green performance”
be said that it was “business as usual” for late autumn and winter maintenance but, again, with a more intensified bias. For about a month after the operation the greens were rolled every two days with the turf iron and mown two times per week at a height of 6mm. Topdressing continued. Another one tonne of sand was applied one week after, and then reduced to 0.5 tonne per green at weekly intervals for the following four weeks. Again, the soluble feeding programme and tank mixes continued throughout the winter. It must be stressed that intensive linear aeration or scarifying to fine turf causes stress as the turf tries to recover itself. I have often seen this lead to very weak and sorry looking surfaces that just lay themselves open to rampant attacks of fusarium.
In my opinion, it should be more widely reported that under feeding turf, in many circumstances, is just as poor practice as over feeding. Simple, sweeping statements about “sustainability” or by “Gingerbread Men” perhaps need countering or qualifying by more in depth comment and analysis on feeding techniques, practices, product types and practical circumstances.
Aeration did not take place again until January 2008, when the greens were slit tined. An overall strategy is one key factor that I feel is very important to get right after the operation (and not a bad idea in normal circumstances anyway). The important thing to remember
here is that we are talking about soil based greens with a heavy clay content. My first sweeping statement is that I think that too many people get carried away with trying to use too big a tine and going in at too great a depth, for two reasons. The first, because they can and secondly because they can and they think this gives the best benefit, but it causes the most disruption and antagonises the golfing customers.
This leads to a cycle of “less and
infrequent” at many clubs, rather than “little and often”. In my opinion using too big a tine on soil greens at too great a depth can further destroy your soil structure and green performance, especially going into and during winter, whether hollow or solid. You just end up with a deep file of air or more pore spaces in fractured soil that can fill up with water as soon as it rains. Once they get wet, they will not start
drying out until the spring, actually compounding all the problems of black layer, thatch, disease etc., with or without sand bands. In a soil based or clay based green, unless you can hit a permeable layer some way down, you are just going to make them wetter. For the past ten years we have got into the habit of using small 12mm diameter round tines, and only going in at between 4”- 6”, from late winter through to midsummer on a 50mm square pattern at about four weekly intervals. This commenced again in March 2008. Our hollow coring is carried out in late August and early September (it takes about three weeks to get round the 57 greens). This year, for the first time, I used the best machine I have ever used for this, my new Wiedenmann GXi. Wiedenmann do an excellent 12mm outer diameter tine with a 5mm diameter inner. The result was a super smooth putting surface at 50mm hole spacings at 4” depth - and two Gator loads of cores to tip from each green. We only do this operation from 6.00am until 9.00am each morning, Monday to Thursday inclusive. All the cores are cleared and the greens dressed, matted
Top 5 Tru-Turf Advantages 1. Increased Green Speed. 2. Improved Surface Smoothness. 3. Improved Consistency Between Greens. 4. Enhanced Surface Uniformity after Coring.
5. Increased Mow Height While Maintaining Green Speed.
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